Electric Networked Vehicle zero-emission hybrid concept

Planet friendly and really green - could an automaker achieve things like these? Oh yes, why not? The vision has been there all along. General Motor's EN-V, short for Electric Networked Vehicle, showed the urge to not interfere with environment in a bad manner. The Porsche 918 Spyder, too showed the way. Then, Swiss car company Mindset came out with its zero-emission hybrid concept.Now, it is 2020 Chevrolet Era project, designed by Yana Briggs of Lithuanian origin, a graduate of Art Center College of Design, much thought has been given to the project before finalizing a design for the eco friendly car.


The Chevrolet Era would have a 2+2 design and would carry its solar panels on the roof. Nicknamed the 'Cleaner' by its designer, the Era works on power gathered at its concave spherical surface. One has to understand that the concave surface has been designed with specific intention to trap maximum power for the vehicle from the sun. Its headlights double up as indicators of the panel charging process. Now, let us move to the Era's interiors.
The internals too, are quite thoughtful. The car is designed to save the one behind the wheel from that polluted air. It uses an O2 filter exhaust. The system renews oxygen for the riders at programmed intervals. The Era has been designed to kill. It boasts of diamond jewellery inspired headlights. These have been detailed very minutely to give the young Yana a chance to compete for the coming World Solar Challenge. That aside, she is presently busy also designing the 2022 Alfa Romeo Mode Concept car.

Light the dark corners of the world

The explorer's symposium at the National Geographic headquarters this summer witnessed an outstanding innovation borrowed from a child's project and the mind of a great explorer- T.H Culhane. When our brilliant explorer viewed a video on youtube, where a child used aluminium cans ( any cold drink holder) and turned it into a battery, he was so inspired that with a global perspective and another well known concept called the 'joule thief', he gave birth to a cheap electricity plan for the backward and rural patches of the world.

Now 'joule thief' is a concept quite judiciously explained by its name, as it uses weak charge to build and convert it into increased energy for all purposes. T.H Culhane used the very same concept to convert a dead AA battery which yields 1.2 volts to power a 3 volt LED light. So now he had in his hands a power saver and almost free of cost 'can' batteries.

Nepal is one of the first planned destinations of this innovation, where Culhane anticipated a huge turnover of waste aluminium cans due to the tourist activity. He plans to set up solar and biogas plants, which will run on this technology. The cans initially will be filled with water (usually operated through wood ash so that it can collect potassium hydroxide) and then used simple electrodes such as a brillo pad or pencil lead to help set up batteries and joule thieves then will light up the remote villages with LED lights. This innovation is a perfect union between fundamentals, new age inventions and global concern which has simmered up high potential solutions to village lighting and electricity problems.

New battery technology / lithium polymer battery pack

The next-generation of lithium-ion batteries aren't just here to power the first wave of electric cars and remake the power grid; they'll be providing better energy storage for our gadgets and computers, too. On Monday, venture capital-backed lithium-ion battery player Leyden Energy (formerly called Mobius Power) is launching a replacement lithium-ion battery for laptops that won't degrade (start losing its full charge) for at least three years, and will come with a three-year warranty.

Most standard laptop batteries start losing their ability to fully charge (providing fewer and fewer hours of battery life) after about a year and a half. Anyone who's a laptop user knows how annoying it is to have a battery that suddenly won't hold a charge for very long, even though it's still early in the life of the laptop itself. Leyden Energy says its battery has one of the highest energy densities and run times for a lithium-ion laptop battery on the market, with 440 watt hours per liter and over 1,000 cycles, and the battery can operate at higher temperatures than traditional batteries.


Leyden Energy's three-year warranty battery will cost a premium over a standard one-year battery, and while Leyden Energy hasn't yet determined the exact price it will sell the battery for, Leyden Energy CEO and President Aakar Patel told me in an interview that a three-year battery will be less than double the cost of a one-year battery. Leyden Energy will also announce a deal Monday to sell its battery through the Canadian battery retailer Dr. Battery, and interested customers will be able to buy the battery online in a couple of weeks through the retailer.

Leyden Energy was founded in 2007 with a patent acquired from chemical giant Dupont, and a $4.5 million investment from investors at Walden International, Lightspeed Venture Partners and Sigma Partners. Leyden's secret sauce is an innovation for the electrolyte part of the battery. A battery has a positive and a negative plate and then an electrolyte in between, which is the substance through which electrons transfer back and forth while the battery charges and discharges.

While standard lithium-ion batteries use a salt-based solvent within the electrolyte that starts degrading at a temperature of between 70 to 80 degrees Celsius, Leyden uses a salt-solvent in its electrolyte that doesn't degrade up to temperatures of 300 degrees Celsius. Leyden Energy holds a patent for this innovation. As Patel explained it to me, when a battery charges and discharges, think of the electrons as rods that move across the electrolyte (between the anode and the cathode) and fill holes on the other side. After a certain point in time, standard electrolytes, particularly at high temperatures, let the rods start to break down and the holes start to fill up, but Leyden's battery can maintain the integrity of those rods and holes at higher temperatures for a longer period of time.


In the grand scheme of innovations, and with startups trying to change the game with designs for battery-powered cars with hundreds of miles of range, Leyden's innovation is kind of like baby steps. But if Leyden can manage to get a deal with a major laptop manufacturer to embed the battery directly in a laptop, or market the battery with a popular laptop, then the company could do well. In 2008, Boston Power launched its three-year-lasting lithium-ion battery with laptop maker HP, and is backed by Oak Investment Partners, Venrock, GGV Capital and Gabriel Venture Partners.

Like Boston Power, Leyden Energy has been eying the electric vehicle battery market, too, and is working with Brammo to supply the battery for its electric motorcycle the Empulse, a more powerful version of Brammo's original e-scooter the Enertia (which I test drove here). Leyden and a vehicle maker partner were also awarded a $2.96 million grant from the California Energy Commission to produce ten electric vehicle batteries per month. Leyden seems like it's focusing more on batteries for the laptop and consumer electronics markets, instead of electric vehicles, as it seems like the market for electric vehicles is moving slower than some have expected (see A123 Systems , and Ener1 ).

Liquid-Cooled LED Bulb

For the past couple of years venture firm VantagePoint Capital Partners has quietly discussed what they say is a revolutionary LED bulb startup called SuperBulbs, which has been developing an incandescent bulb-killer. Well, looks like the startup, now renamed as Switch Lighting, is finally showing off its first set of commercial products, which are liquid-cooled LED bulbs that are meant to replace incandescent bulbs, at the lighting convention Lightfair this week.


Switch's bulbs are designed to have small LEDs placed around the edge of the bulb, rather than at a central point, which is common for most LEDs. Switch's bulbs also use liquid within the bulb to cool the LEDs, because liquids are a lot more efficient cooling medium than air (read more about liquid-cooled servers). This combo is the secret-sauce behind why Switch claims its bulb "is the closest alternative to incandescent-quality light," today on the market. Greentech Media has an interesting video and description of the technology.

Switch's first bulbs — it launched a 100-watt incandescent equivalent at Lightfair, and also has developed 40-watt, 65-watt, 75-watt equivalents — are supposed to go on sale later this year. An important thing to note about the Switch bulbs is that they are also supposed to retail for under $20 for the 40-watt, and will likely be far less expensive than the current LED bulbs on the market that can cost as high as $40 to $50 per bulb.
That price point gives the Switch LED bulb a lot quicker pay off in energy savings to the buyer. Switch says its bulbs use 85 less energy than incandescent bulbs and the return on investment is about a year. This could be a game-changer in the industry — if consumers actually respond and start buying these when they come out.

Two layers of liquid metal

A buzzy startup working on a battery that sandwiches molten salt between two layers of liquid metal has gotten seed funding from Microsoft Co-Founder Bill Gates, reports Cnet . The company is called Liquid Metal Battery, and it's the brainchild of MIT Professor Donald Sadoway (see our 15 Questions for the Don of Liquid Metal Batteries). When I attended the Department of Energy's ARPA-E event earlier this year, Liquid Metal Battery was the company everyone was talking about. (It was one of the earliest grant winners under the ARPA-E program.)

Sadoway and his team have been working on a stable, low-cost, large-scale grid battery, and the group has been building the battery at larger and larger sizes to prove the concept — from "shot glass" scale, to hockey puck, to pizza, and eventually to ping-pong table-sized. Sadoway told us he was planning to spin off the company with some of his co-workers, and this seed round from Gates and others is no doubt to get the company up and running. Cnet says Sadoway is taking a year-long sabbatical from MIT to be the Science Advisor to Liquid Metal Battery.

Sadoway told us what drew him to use liquid metals for a grid battery was a belief that a battery based on liquid metal electrodes would be stable, and scalable at an acceptably low cost for grid storage and renewables storage applications. "That's the number one problem with storage right now. We have batteries that can cycle and do all sorts of things that will meet the technical requirements of the application, but they're far too costly," said Sadoway. Using a large pool of liquid in the battery — as opposed to many individual cells — is why Sadoway thinks the design can deliver a low-cost battery.


The project received an ARPA-E grant of $6.9 million, and Sadoway said the funds helped the team move much more quickly, including expanding company operations to hire more staff, students and post-docs. The project also received $4 million from oil company Total.

Over the past year, Bill Gates has been talking about, and investing in, green technology companies, including nuclear startup TerraPower and being an LP in Khosla Venture's fund. Gates also said at an event last year that he has invested in five battery startups. Liquid Metal Battery must be one of those. Also during that event, Gates said he thinks that battery innovation "may not be solvable in an economic way."

Andaman the genesis

Contrary to the popular belief that humans originated from the African continent, a recent study by an anthropologist from Allahabad University (AU) suggests that the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and the South Asian Islands witnessed the genesis of mankind.


According to Prof Vijoy Shankar Sahay, HoD of the department of Anthropology of AU, suggests that the twin island along with Malaysia, Philippines, Papna and New Guinea, Australia and the Tasmania, were among the regions where the earlier mankind evolved and spread to various parts of the world.

"The physical evidence of the four Andaman tribes including Andamanies, Jarawa, Sentinelese and Onge show that the hypothesis propounded by Haeckle that 'the genesis of human race has to be from a region of tropical country' stands true. Among these Jarawa and Sentinelese are in the purest form, untouched by the modern amenities and racial mixing," revealed Prof Sahay.

Detailing about the evidence which strengthens his findings Sahay said, "Darwin's theory about the evolution of mankind had a missing link between ape and man which was solved by Haeckle who named this missing link as 'Phecanthropus', the ape man".


He further said that a Danish anthropologist, Eugenedubois, found out a fossil at Java Island, skull of which had the cranium capacity (cc) of 800 cc. "This was certainly skull of the ape man as skull cc of Anthropological ape ranges from 300-600 cc whereas that of human is 1000-1600 cc", said Sahay.

"When we closely study the physical appearance of Sentinelese and Jarawa tribes we find that the skin of these tribes are totally hairless and smooth that too in such an inhospitable ecology", said Sahay. This suggests that the tribes of Andaman and Nicobar region are the offsprings of early human race, he added.

Robotics engineer / Artificial intelligence future

 
robots are the helping hands everyone has always wished for. Deriving its origin from the Czech word robota, meaning forced labour;Though the first thing that comes to mind vis-a-vis a robot is an imitation of a human from Star Wars, the Terminator or Star Trek it's not always a man versus machine game. Robots we encounter in our daily lives are those that perform tasks that are too dangerous, boring or onerous, thus being the helping hands.
With over a million types of robots, their presence is seen in almost every industry especially the auto, medical, manufacturing and space industry. Robots are used in industries for speeding up the manufacturing process. They are also used in the fields of nuclear science, sea exploration, servicing of transmission signals and bio-medical equipment design.
 
Created as a result of the perfect blend of the human imagination and technological developments, robots can be described better as mechanical devices that are capable of performing a variety of complex human tasks on command or by being programmed in advance. It is an artificial agent guided by computer or electric programming and is able to do tasks on its own.
A combination of intelligence, energy, movement and senses, robots require these characteristics to fulfil their purpose. The branch of study that develops these robots is robotic engineering. It deals with design and application of robots and the use of computer for their manipulation and processing.
Professor Patricia H. Reiff, director, Rice Space Institute and a professor at the Department of Physics and Astronomy, Rice University, while highlighting new career trends says, "Robotics is very critical these days and one of the most upcoming career options. The expansion in space research these days will also boost robotics and its development."
To follow this career and develop an interest in robotics, an engineering background is a must. Mechatronics is the area of knowledge and practice interfacing mechanical and electronics engineering. Robotics is a subset of mechatronics, which involves automated machinery and components that move. Robotics being an inter-disciplinary course prefers students who have completed their graduation in mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, instrumentation engineering or computer engineering with an interest in robotics and artificial intelligence.
Though the specialisation is offered at an undergraduate level in a few private engineering colleges across the country, it is not the preferred choice. The popularity and growing demand for robotics is at the Master's level.
A course in robotics trains and educates a student in the field of artificial intelligence, computer-aided manufacturing, computer integrated manufacturing system, computational geometry, robot motion planning, digital electronics and micro processing. The different facets of building a robot include working on developing the hardware, software, intelligence control and adaptive control of this machine.






























Robotics is not all about designing the robots. Its maintenance, developing new applications and conducting research are equally important. Specialising in design and control in robotics is close to mechanical engineering. For hardware design of robots, a B.Tech. in electrical or electronics and communication engineering forms a good base.

Computer engineers can look at hardware design in robotics and the controls part requires aspects of electrical engineering. This field also requires the application of computer-integrated manufacturing, mechanical engineering, electrical and software engineering and biological mechanics.
In India, work on robotics began in educational institutions and research centres such as the Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) and the Indian Institute of Science. Now this field is the preferred choice of many budding engineers and contests are held among students across the country to encourage talent.
 
Robotics engineering can be studied at the IITs in Mumbai, Chennai, Delhi, Kanpur, Kharagpur and Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. A few other institutes that offer this specialisation are the National Institute of Technology, University of Hyderabad, Jadavpur University and the Birla Institute of Technology and Science.
A specialisation in robotics is a popular choice for students going abroad to study. This field offers job opportunities and a robotics engineer can apply his mastery in diverse fields like modern warfare, surgery, nano-technology and space-exploration. Many funding programmes and scholarships are available for research and PhD. students. Developing a robot comes with the goal of finding a solution to the problem. Along with the technical know-how, interest in research is essential. This field has no boundaries and will continue to grow until the machines take over!

confuse the brain

Crossing your arms after burning your hand or suffering an injury could lessen pain, research suggests.
Scientists found that crossing the arms across the body may confuse the brain about where pain is occurring.
Researchers think the theory has most impact on pain felt in the hands, and have not
A team from University College London (UCL) used a laser to generate a four millisecond pin prick of pure pain (without touch) on the hands of eight people.
The test was then repeated with the arms crossed.
The participants recorded their perception of the intensity of the pain, and their electrical brain responses were also measured using scans.
yet tested it on other parts of the body.
The reports and the scans revealed that people's perception of pain was weaker when the arms were crossed.
Dr Giandomenico Iannetti, lead author of the paper from the UCL department of Physiology, Pharmacology and Neuroscience, said: 'Perhaps when we get hurt, we should not only 'rub it better' but also cross our arms.
'In everyday life you mostly use your left hand to touch things on the left side of the world, and your right hand for the right side of the world - for example when picking up a glass of water on your right side you generally use your right hand.
'This means that the areas of the brain that contain the map of the right body and the map of right external space are usually activated together, leading to highly effective processing of sensory stimuli.
'When you cross your arms these maps are not activated together anymore, leading to less effective brain processing of sensory stimuli, including pain, being perceived as weaker.'
The study, published in the journal Pain, involved crossing arms over the midline (an imaginary line running vertically down the centre of the body), as happens when people cross their arms naturally.
According to the researchers, the discovery could lead to therapies to reduce pain.

Synthetic plastics / Synthetic car plastics

Synthetic car plastics will eventually be blowing in the wind like those yellow heads of dandelions, the herbaceous perennial foliage that grows in lawns and alongside highways. Does thinking about it make you want to sneeze? Forget the pollen. Ford has been itching for a new kind of rubber for its cars, and dandelions could be the answer.

Ford's engineers are teaming with Ohio State on developing the Russian dandelion (or TKS) as a natural rubber source for cup holders, floor mats and interior trim in its vehicles. So far, everything is coming up (cough) roses in this latest effort by the company to revamp its factory and fleet for a sustainable plug-in future.

By harvesting the weeds in neat rows in a greenhouse, researchers are able to learn how to manage the flowers and the sap that seeps from the roots, a potential source of rubber that could be even stronger than automotive plastics. The Southwestern U.S. shrub Guayule might also be used to replace the toxic alternative.

"What we are trying to do is to create sustainability of vehicles from inside and out by figuring out how we can make materials out of renewable recycled materials rather than depending on petroleum products," says Ellen Lee, a chemical engineer and member of The Ford Research Biomaterials Group in Detroit.  "We are looking at how we can use things we grow to put into our cars."


Things like soy, which Ford has led the way in tapping to produce polyurethane foam seat cushions, backs and headrests. The parts are now on more than 1.5 million Ford, Lincoln and Mercury vehicles on the road, a reduction in petroleum oil usage of some four million pounds each year. Ford also broke ground with the industry's first use of a soy-foam headliner on the 2010 Escape and Mercury Mariner for a 25 percent weight savings versus a traditional glass-mat headliner.

"We are committed to using local resources and raw materials that come from the U.S. and Canada," says Angela Harris, another Ford researcher. "We are in the labs day to day working on products and vising schools, local news stations, public radio stations and start up technology companies to share our mission and the fact the U.S. and Ford are leading the way."

Along the way, their campaign also reaches out to young women who are a minority in the automotive and engineering fields. The team hopes to set an example of what female scientists can do to expedite the development of responsible parts for vehicles.


"Five of us are moms and are working on biotechnology with Ford," says Lee. "We are getting out there to say women should pursue careers in engineering since biotechnology is fast becoming a number-one field. "

In the meantime, they hope to get all of us thinking about how to incorporate available plants as possible materials in our every day lives. It all makes sense when you consider dandelion root is used medicinally to ease everything from a loss of appetite to insufferable intestinal gas, excruciating gallstones, nagging joint pain, muscle aches, eczema and bruises. It helps increase urine production, prompt bowel movements and is a stimulating skin toner, blood and digestive tonic. Some use it to treat infections or to spice up salad greens, soups, wine and teas.Now that's some killer weed.

leonardo da vinci models / leonardo da vinci the artist /da vinci model

Researchers have begun their hunt for the remains of the woman who might have been the model for Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa, hoping to unravel a mystery that has baffled art historians for over five centuries.
A team of experts armed with a special radar device descended this week on a dilapidated convent in Florence where they believe the body of the woman who modeled for da Vinci back in the 16th century is buried.
The real Mona Lisa, Italian art historians say, was Lisa Gherardini, the wife of a rich Florentine silk merchant named Francesco del Giocondo who is thought to have commissioned the portrait, although there is no definitive proof of this.
The researchers say that if they can find her skull, they will be able to reconstruct her face and compare it with the painting.
The true identity of Mona Lisa and her enigmatic smile have intrigued art lovers around the world.
According to the Louvre museum in Paris, where the painting is on display, the portrait was likely painted in Florence between 1503 and 1506 and could have been commissioned to mark one of two events: either when Gherardini and her husband bought their house or when their second son was born.

The key to solving the mystery may lie at the Saint Orsola convent, a structure in central Florence almost reduced to ruins.
Using radar equipment which can identify objects underground, scientists are scanning the floor in the small church to pinpoint areas where they may start digging for Gherardini's remains.
"We have a document confirming the burial of Gherardini in 1542 here in the convent" said Silvano Vinceti, head of the National Committee for the Promotion of Historic and Cultural Heritage.
Researchers say Gherardini spent the last years of her life at the convent, looked after by her two daughters who were nuns, and was buried there.
"To be sure we have to find the DNA in her bones, and once we have found that we can compare it with the DNA of her children who are buried at the Santissima Annunziata convent," said Professor Francesco Mallegni, a paleoanthropologist.
Vinceti has been studying the painting for months and recently claimed to have found symbols hidden in the portrait.
He says Gherardini might have been an early model for the Mona Lisa but that da Vinci was also probably inspired by the face of his young male apprentice, Gian Giacomo Caprotti, who some say was also his lover.
It is not clear how long the project to study Gherardini's remains will need before coming to any conclusion but some of her descendants have already expressed skepticism.
"Let her rest in peace. What could finding her remains change to the charm of Leonardo's painting? To look for her bones seems a sacrilege to me," said one of them, actress and writer Natalia Strozzi.

Psychological Sleep Disorders

According to the American Psychiatric Association, sleep disorders are major disturbances of normal sleep patterns that lead to distress and disrupt functioning during the day (APA, 2000). Not only are sleep disorder extremely common, affecting virtually everyone at some point in their lives, but they can also lead to serious stress and other health consequences.
According to a major survey by the National Sleep Foundation, more than half of Americans reported experiencing at least one symptoms of insomnia several times a week during the previous year. Highlighting another major danger of sleep disorders, the survey also reported that 60 percent of respondents had driven while drowsy during the previous year (2005).

Insomnia:


Insomnia is by far the most common sleep disorder, affecting nearly 60 percent of U.S. adults at least one night each week (National Sleep Foundation, 2002). Common symptoms of insomnia include difficulty getting to sleep and waking before it is time to get up. There are many factors that can contribute to insomnia including stress and underlying medical conditions. Typical treatments include sleeping pills and behavior therapy. Practicing good sleep habits can often be effective for treating mild cases of insomnia.

Sleep Apnea:



Sleep apnea is the second most common sleep disorder and affects approximately 20 million Americans. This disorder causes people to stop breathing abruptly while they are asleep. During this brief period, carbon dioxide builds up in the blood and the sleeper wakes suddenly to gasp for breath. The length of time that the sleeper stop breathing can vary from a few seconds to so long that the individuals skin actually turns blue from oxygen deprivation.

Narcolepsy:



Narcolepsy is a neurological sleep disorder that leads to periods of intense sleepiness during the daytime. People suffering from narcolepsy often experience bouts of overwhelming sleepiness and may fall asleep for brief periods of time during the day. These sleeping periods may last from a few seconds to several minutes and in some cases may last up to an hour or more. Those with narcolepsy can fall asleep in the middle of a conversation, during a meal or even while driving a vehicle.
Affecting as many as 250,000 Americans, narcolepsy is a chronic condition that typically begins during adolescence. In addition to sleepiness, narcolepsy is frequently accompanied by cataplexy, which involves a sudden loss of muscle tone and control that can last seconds or minutes. Other symptoms include hallucinations and paralysis during sleep.

Sleepwalking & Night Terrors:



While insomnia and sleep apnea are more common in adults, other sleep disorders such as sleepwalking and night terrors are far more common in young children. Sleepwalking, also known as somnambulism, is characterized by periods of getting out of bed while asleep.
Night terrors are most frequently seen in very young children (between the ages of 2 and 6), but people of any age can be affected by this sleep disorder. Typical symptoms include excessive sweating, shaking and obvious fear.

Sony and Toshiba waste management and recycling

The Consumer Electronics Association, along with manufacturers and retailers such as Panasonic, Best Buy, Sony and Toshiba, launched an industry-wide initiative yesterday to boost electronics waste recycling to one billion pounds a year by 2016.

That translates to roughly three times the amount of e-waste recycled in 2010, the year to be used as the baseline for the eCycling Leadership Initiative. The effort will focus on consumer education on electronics recycling, increasing the number of facilities to collect e-waste, reporting progress, and supporting a shift toward third-party recycler certification.

"This unique industry-led approach transcends the patchwork of current state recycling regulations with an aggressive set of industry goals and standards," Walter Alcorn, CEA's vice president of environmental affairs and industry sustainability, said in a statement. "Through the eCycling Leadership Initiative, the consumer electronics industry is moving toward a national solution and away from the costly and confusing patchwork of state regulations."

The initiative will continue working with President Barack Obama's Taskforce on Electronics Stewardship. Congressman Mike Thompson (D-Calif.), a senior member of the House Committee on Ways and Means who has previously introduced e-waste legislation, hailed the development.


"I am pleased that major leaders in the consumer electronics industry are taking concrete action to address the e-waste crisis," said Rep. Thompson. "While there's been progress in the recycling of old electronics equipment, much more work needs to be done. The 'Billion Pound Challenge' will help accomplish our goals by making the electronics industry part of the solution to e-waste. This isn't just smart environmental policy -- it's corporate responsibility and accountability at its finest."


Not everyone, however, is applauding the initiative. Barbara Kyle, executive director of the Electronics Takeback Coalition, called the announcement "seriously underpowered."

"CEA gave almost no other information about the program or how they are going to meet their goal," Kyle wrote in a blog post Wednesday. "They won't even say which companies are participating. What will each company be responsible for? What products will they take back -- everything they make? A big announcement of a new program should have included at least some details."

Kyle pointed out the initiative doesn't guarantee that electronics won't be exported to developing countries. A map of 5,000 industry sites provided by CEA also includes sites not connected to the CEA effort. She was critical of CEA's effort to make the program the basis for a national program.


Kyle recommended a series of steps that could strengthen the eCycling Leadership Initiative, including a policy forbidding the export of toxic e-waste to developing countries and going beyond state-level compliance to creating robust recycling programs in all states.

The Basel Action Network similarly called for CEA members to "leapfrog" the eCycling Leadership Initiative and support tighter standards, namely the stringent e-Stewards Certification program.

water-powered jet

thanks to Canadian engineers who claim to have designed a futuristic water-powered jet pack. The water-powered machine, 'Jetlev-Flyer', looks like something out of a James Bond or Superman movie.
 it can hover up to 30 metres in the air and reach speeds of up to 22 miles per hour as one makes one's way across the water.
The device has a cruising duration of between one to two hours. This is all dependent on pilot weight. A digital fly-by-wire system is used to control the throttle.
The flying machine, designed by a team led by Raymond Li, is priced at 110,000 pounds.
It was recently tested out on the beaches of Miami in the US, and the pilot propelled into the air and flew across the water successfully, the Daily Mail reported.
The flights controls are designed so it is easy enough for anybody to use, according to the designers who took nearly 10 years to build it.
The 'Jetlev-Flyer' has a 10-metre hose and an engine which doubles as a flotation device. The hose is essential because water is sucked up and spat out through two nozzles which are mounted on the users back, say the designers.

world's most powerful rocket

A high-tech entrepreneur unveiled plans to launch the world's most powerful rocketsince man wentto the moon.
    Space Exploration Technology has already sent the first private rocket andcapsule into Earth's orbit as a commercial venture.Itis now planning a rocket that could lift twice as much cargo into orbit as the soon-to-be-retired space shuttle. The first launch is slotted for 2013 from California with follow-up launches from Cape Canaveral in Florida.
    Space X's new rocket called Falcon Heavy is big enough to send cargo or even people out of Earth's orbit to the moon, an asteroid or Mars. Only the long retired Saturn V rocket that sent men to the moon was bigger. "This is a rocket of truly huge scale," said Space X president Elon Musk.
    The Falcon Heavy could put 117,000 pounds into the sameorbit astheInternational Space Station. The space shuttle hauls about 54,000 pounds into orbit. The old Saturn V could carry more than 400,000 pounds of cargo. The old Soviet Union had a giant moon rocket bigger than the Falcon Heavy, but it failed in all four launch attempts. Another Soviet rocket, also bigger than Falcon Heavy and designed to launch its version of the space shuttle, had one successful flight more than 20 years ago.
  
Musk said if Nasa does buy rideson commercial rockets, he would be able to fly astronauts to the space station in his smaller Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon capsule within three years. He said Falcon Heavy willbefar cheaper than government or private rockets. Launches are about $100 million each.

significant discovery of god

Physicists at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory are planning to announce they have found a suspicious bump in their data that could be evidence of a new elementary particle or even, some say, a new force of nature.
    The results,if they holdup,couldbe a spectacular last hurrah for Fermilab's Tevatron, once the world's most powerful particle accelerator and now slated to go dark forever in September or earlier, whenever Fermilab runs out of money to operate it.
    "Nobody knows what this is," said Christopher Hill, a theorist at Fermilabwhowas not partof theteam. "Ifitis real, it would be the most significant discovery in physics in half a century."
    One possible explanation for this mysterious bump, scientists say, is that it is evidence of a new and unexpected version of the long-sought Higgs boson. This is a hypothetical elementary particle that, according to the reigning theory known asthe StandardModel,is responsible for endowing other elementary particles with mass.
   
Another explanation might be that it is evidence of a new force of nature — in addition to gravity, electromagnetism, and the strong and weak nuclear forces we already know — that would manifest itself only at very short distances like thosethat ruleinsidethe atomic nucleus.
    Either could shake what has passed for conventional wisdom in physics for the last few decades. Or it could be there is something they do not understand about so-called regular physics.
    The Tevatron has been colliding beams of protons and their opposites, antiprotons, accelerated to energies of 1 trillion electron volts, for over two decades looking for new forces and particles. The bump showed up in an analysis of some 10,000 of those collisions collected by the Collider Detector atFermilab.
    They found that in about 250 more cases than they expected, what came out of the collision were two jets of lightweight particles, like electrons, and a heavy-force-carrying particle called the W boson were produced. The team foundthatin about250times more cases than expected, the total energy of the jets clustered around a value of about 144 billion electron volts, as if they were the decay products of a hitherto unsuspected particle with that mass-energy. For comparison, a proton weighs about one billion electron volts.
    This could not be Standard Model Higgs, Punzi and his colleagues concluded, as the Higgs is predicted to decay into much heavier particles, namely quarks. Moreover,the rate atwhichthese mystery particles were being produced was 300 times greater than Higgsbosonswouldbe produced.If real,itwassomething totally new,Punzisaid.

drill down to Earth’s mantle

It may not quite be Journey To The Centre Of The Earth, but it's the closest we've come yet.
A team of British-led researchers are to drill down to Earth's mantle for the first time and bring back samples.

The incredible feat would involve tunnelling through five miles of solid rock on the sea bed in temperatures as high as 570F (298C).Once there, the pressure on the equipment would be a staggering four million pounds per square inch - 285,000 times that of normal gravity.
The scientists hope to take samples and get them back up to the surface so we can learn more about the origins of the planet.
The bold plan mimics the classic 1959 sci-fi film Journey To The Centre Of The Earth, in which Pat Boone leads a group of adventurers who venture down an Icelandic volcano to the bowels of our world.

The real-life version would not go as far and would stop at the mantle, the 2,000mile thick layer between the crust and the molten core, but would nonetheless be a first for science.
It was announced by Dr Damon Teagle of the National Oceanography Centre in Southampton and Dr Benoit Ildefonse from Montpellier University in France.
Experts likened the significance to that of 'moon rocks' from our moon in terms of what they could tell us about our past.
It would also tell us about the Moho layer which sits at the base of the crust and may explain how and why earthquakes happen.
Dr Teagle explained that the best place to drill to the mantle would be in the ocean as the crust is thinner there.


The technical challenges would be enormous and the drill would have to function without a riser, a common safety feature where double pipes are used to vent gasses.

Instead, seawater would have to be pumped into the hole with enough pressure to force samples being dug up back up to the surface.

There have been previous attempts to drill to the mantle but Project Mohole in the 1960s failed due to poor organisation and cost overruns.

Samples of rock from the mantle have also found their way to the surface but they have been spouted out by volcanoes.

Dr Teagle and his team are now searching for a suitable site somewhere in the Pacific and hope to have the expertise, technology and funding in place by 2018.

an artificial leaf own power station.

Scientists claim to have found the 'Holy Grail' of science in an artificial leaf that could turn ever British home into its own power station.

The leaf, which is the same size as a playing card, mimics the process of photosynthesis that plants use to convert sunlight and water into energy.

Scientists behind the invention say it could provide an affordable solution to the third world's growing energy crisis.
Dr Daniel Nocera, who led the research team, said: 'A practical artificial leaf has been one of the Holy Grails of science for decades.
'We believe we have done it.'The artificial leaf shows particular promise as an inexpensive source of electricity for homes of the poor in developing countries. Our goal is to make each home its own power station.
'One can envision villages in India and Africa not long from now purchasing an affordable basic power system based on this technology.'

The device bears no resemblance to Mother Nature's counterparts on oaks, maples and other green plants, which scientists have used as the model for their efforts to develop this new genre of solar cells.
About the shape of a poker card but thinner, the device is fashioned from silicon, electronics and catalysts, substances that accelerate chemical reactions that otherwise would not occur, or would run slowly.

Placed in a single gallon of water in a bright sunlight, the device could produce enough electricity to supply a house in a developing country with electricity for a day, Nocera said.

It does so by splitting water into its two components, hydrogen and oxygen.

The hydrogen and oxygen gases would be stored in a fuel cell, which uses those two materials to produce electricity, located either on top of the house or beside it.

Nocera, who is with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, points out that the 'artificial leaf' is not a new concept.

The first artificial leaf was developed more than a decade ago by John Turner of the U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Boulder, Colorado.

Although highly efficient at carrying out photosynthesis, Turner's device was impractical for wider use, as it was composed of rare, expensive metals and was highly unstable — with a lifespan of barely one day.

Nocera's new leaf overcomes these problems.

It is made of inexpensive materials that are widely available, works under simple conditions and is highly stable. In laboratory studies, he showed that an artificial leaf prototype could operate continuously for at least 45 hours without a drop in activity.

The key to this breakthrough is Nocera's recent discovery of several powerful new, inexpensive catalysts, made of nickel and cobalt, that are capable of efficiently splitting water into its two components, hydrogen and oxygen, under simple conditions.

Right now, Nocera's leaf is about 10 times more efficient at carrying out photosynthesis than a natural leaf. However, he is optimistic that he can boost the efficiency of the artificial leaf much higher in the future.

'Nature is powered by photosynthesis, and I think that the future world will be powered by photosynthesis as well in the form of this artificial leaf,' said Nocera, a chemist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Mass. 

Smart Bird soar higher

One of mankind's oldest and most elusive dreams has been to recreate the effortless, swooping flight of a large bird.
Now scientists have invented a robot that not only perfectly mimics that flight, but could be mistaken for the real thing.
The SmartBird's revolutionary design allows it to start, fly and land autonomously.
Its wings not only beat up and down, they also twist at specific angles, providing the ultra-light model with 'excellent aerodynamic qualities and extreme agility'.
Controlled by a radio handset, it can also simply glide through the skies if left to its own devices.

Steering is achieved when the SmartBird, which weighs just 450grams, moves its tail and turns its head from side-to-side.
Inspired by the herring seagull, scientists at technology firm Festo control the up/down flapping motion of the wings by spinning two wheels inside the robot's torso.
Similar to the wheels on a steam train, these are connected by rods that in turn provide the wings with their flapping movement.
The angle of the wings is adjusted by using 'torsional motors' that point the wings upwards on the up-stroke, making the SmartBird soar higher, and point downward on the down-stroke.

A spokesman for Festo said: 'The minimal use of materials and the extremely lightweight construction pave the way for efficiency in resource and energy consumption.'
While undeniably impressive from a technological viewpoint, it is the SmartBird's uncanny resemblance to an actual bird that astounds.
From the ground it is easily mistaken for the real thing, so realistic are its movements and the flapping of its wings.

On closer inspection, of course, it is clearly a robot.

green cities India and japan

The Japanese government announced yesterday that it would sign a free trade agreement with India that would eliminate 94 percent of trade tariffs over the next decade. The partnership between two of Asia's leading innovators runs much deeper than sending goods across the boarder though. It's also sprouting a network of "green cities."   Historically, India and Japan have had strong relations politically and commercially, a result of the spread of Buddhism coming from India via China to Japan in the 6th century A.D.

During World War II, the Indian National Army was employed by the Japanese Imperial Army in Japan's efforts against British forces. Japanese commercial giants like Honda, Sony, and Toyota have long been operating manufacturing plants in India and one of Japan's most successful companies, Suzuki, has a strong partnership with the largest car manufacturer in India, Maruti.   In December, 2006, India and Japan signed the Joint Statement Towards Japan-India Strategic and Global Partnership. Since then, the two countries have participated in annual summits, which have culminated in projects such as the Delhi Metro and the JET Program.


In November, 2010, India and Japan unveiled a plan to launch 24 green cities along the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor. These green cities will have optimized energy supplies, 24-hour potable water supply, bicycle and walking paths, and water and waste recycling systems. Preparatory work has begun on pilot projects in seven green cities expected to be part of the DMIC. "Green cities and green technologies will be an important part of the DMIC. It will be like forging a sort of a green alliance between India and Japan," said Aftab Seth, a former Indian ambassador to Japan.

Japan's reputation as a world leader in green technologies adds tremendous credibility to the possibilities of these green cities. Companies like Hitachi, Mitsubishi, and Toshiba are all expected to participate in the design and construction of eco-friendly towns in seven states. Because Japan is more energy efficient than India, the development of green cities will allow knowledge sharing across the nations, with the end goal being improved energy efficiency and overall quality of life for citizens of the green cities and, eventually, all of India.



India has a lot to learn from Japan: despite the massive difference in size of the two countries, Japan at one point was the shining star of Asia and now, even after all its economic woes, is still the world's third largest economy. India's potential though seems to supersede what global expectations were of Japan twenty years ago.

It cannot be denied that part of the motivation for strengthening the tie between India and Japan is to counter China's progress. But the two countries are capitalizing on a unique opportunity to set a worldwide example of the future of urban planning and development. The combination of state-of-the-art infrastructure supporting transportation functions and the modernity of "green" living is an innovative idea and can very well change the way the world—both developed and developing—will view international relations in the context of readying for the future.

Baidu mobile os

As part of its quest to become Google of China, Baidu has already launched a Twitter-like service and announced plans to integrate apps and search. Now they're taking another step forward to develop their own operating system for mobile devices.

According to the company's chief executive Robin Li, over the coming 3-5 years Baidu will create software that offers a web search box within a second of starting mobile phone or tablet computer. From what I've understood, we're not talking about an Android-like platform, rather Baidu wants to develop something like Chrome OS.

Mr Li said: "Right now when you power on an iPhone, it takes 45 seconds before you can do anything. In the future, one second, you turn on the device, and you can start using the box. That's our mission for the future of the internet."

He went on talking about the goal to transform the search box into a universal computing tool that could replace all other interfaces. "The goal is to let people become increasingly dependent on the Baidu box," he added.