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>>> Physicists Detect Elusive 'Ghost Particles' in The LHC For The Very First Time
Science Alert
by Michelle Starr
11-29-21
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/physicists-detect-elusive-ghost-particles-in-the-lhc-for-the-very-first-time/ar-AARf4jx
A major milestone in particle physics has just been made at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).
For the first time, candidate neutrinos have been detected, not just at the LHC, but in any particle collider.
The six neutrino interactions, detected using the neutrino subdetector FASERnu, not only demonstrate the feasibility of the technology, they open up a new avenue for studying these mysterious particles, particularly at high energies.
"Prior to this project, no sign of neutrinos has ever been seen at a particle collider," said physicist Jonathan Feng of the University of California Irvine, co-leader of the FASER Collaboration.
"This significant breakthrough is a step toward developing a deeper understanding of these elusive particles and the role they play in the Universe."
Neutrinos are actually everywhere. They're one of the most abundant subatomic particles in the Universe; but they carry no charge and have almost zero mass so, although they stream through the Universe at almost the speed of light, they barely interact with it at all. Billions of the things are streaming through you right now. To a neutrino, the rest of the Universe is basically incorporeal; that's why they're also known as ghost particles.
Although they interact rarely, that's not the same as never. Detectors such as IceCube in Antarctica, Super-Kamiokande in Japan, and MiniBooNE at Fermilab in Illinois use sensitive photodetector arrays designed to pick up the showers of light that emerge when a neutrino interacts with other particles in a completely dark environment, for example.
But for a long time, scientists have wanted to also study neutrinos produced at particle colliders. That's because collider neutrinos, which emerge primarily from the decay of hadrons, are produced at very high energies, which are not very well studied. Detecting collider neutrinos provides access to neutrino energies and types that are rarely seen elsewhere.
FASERnu is what is known as an emulsion detector. Lead and tungsten plates are alternated with layers of emulsion: During particle experiments at the LHC, neutrinos can collide with nuclei in the lead and tungsten plates, producing particles that leave tracks in the emulsion layers, a bit like the way ionizing radiation makes tracks in a cloud chamber.
The plates need to be developed like photographic film. Then, physicists can analyze the particle trails to find out what produced them; whether it was a neutrino, and then what the neutrino's 'flavor', or type, was. There are three neutrino flavors – electron, muon and tau – as well as their antineutrino counterparts.
In the FASERnu pilot run conducted in 2018, six candidate neutrino interactions were recorded in the emulsion layers. That may not seem like many, considering how many particles are produced in a run at the LHC, but it gave the collaboration two vital pieces of information.
"First, it verified that the position forward of the ATLAS interaction point at the LHC is the right location for detecting collider neutrinos," Feng said. "Second, our efforts demonstrated the effectiveness of using an emulsion detector to observe these kinds of neutrino interactions."
The pilot detector was a relatively small apparatus, at around 29 kilograms (64 pounds). The team is currently working on the full version, around 1,100 kilograms (over 2,400 pounds). This instrument will be significantly more sensitive, and will allow the researchers to differentiate between neutrino flavors and their antineutrino counterparts.
They're expecting that the third observing run of the Large Hadron Collider will produce 200 billion electron neutrinos, 6 trillion muon neutrinos, and 9 billion tau neutrinos, and their antineutrinos. Since we've only detected around 10 tau neutrinos, total, to date, this will be a pretty big deal.
The collaboration is also eyeing even more elusive prey. They have their hopes pinned on a detection of dark photons, which are at the moment hypothetical, but which could help reveal the nature of dark matter, the mysterious directly-undetectable mass that makes up most of the Universe's matter.
But the neutrino detections alone are a tremendously exciting step forward for our understanding of the fundamental components of the Universe.
"Given the power of our new detector and its prime location at CERN, we expect to be able to record more than 10,000 neutrino interactions in the next run of the LHC, beginning in 2022," said physicist and astronomer David Casper of the University of California, Irvine, FASER project co-leader.
"We will detect the highest-energy neutrinos that have ever been produced from a human-made source."
The team's research has been published in Physical Review D.
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>>> Artificial Sun, Which Could Create Almost Limitless Clean Energy, Breaks Plasma Record
MSN News
by Robert Lea
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/artificial-sun-which-could-create-almost-limitless-clean-energy-breaks-plasma-record/ar-AAR8lKQ?ocid=uxbndlbing
The aim of researchers to bring nuclear fusion—the process that powers the stars—down to Earth has been bolstered after the Korea Institute of Fusion Energy's Korea Superconducting Tokamak Advanced Research (KSTAR) reactor maintained super-hot plasma within a magnetic field for 30 seconds.
The achievement is a step forward in scientists' desire to harness the fusion that occurs at the heart of the Sun, and then reproduce it on Earth in a controlled manner.
Should they succeed, fusion power will provide the world with a safe, sustainable, environmentally responsible, and abundant source of energy.
Fusion is almost the reverse of nuclear fission (which powers the world's nuclear reactors). Whereas fission consists of the breaking apart of heavy atoms such as uranium, fusion involves the smashing together of light atoms to make heavier atoms and energy.
Fusion is a cleaner process as it creates no radioactive waste, and proceeds with light and abundant materials like hydrogen, which can be obtained from seawater, rather than expensive and rare elements, such as uranium or plutonium.
Theoretically, one liter of water could provide enough raw material for fusion to produce as much energy as the combustion of 300 liters of oil.
Nuclear fusions devices like KSTAR, known as tokamaks, replicate plasma, a state of matter created under the massive gravitational pressure and intense heat of stars like the Sun.
In this super-hot stellar plasma, hydrogen atoms smash together at high velocities creating helium atoms. In the process, these fusions create vast amounts of energy radiated by stars.
To copy this, tokamaks—often referred to as "artificial suns"—must heat heavy helium (deuterium) with lasers to temperatures as high as millions of degrees Fahrenheit, confining it within powerful magnetic fields.
To generate fusion energy, these artificial suns have contained the plasma at these temperatures long enough for atomic nuclei to begin smashing together.
In 2016, KSTAR set a world record for maintaining plasma heated by containing plasma heated to 90 million °F for 70 seconds. This record was broken in 2017 by China's Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) when it sustained 90 million °F plasma for 102 seconds.
While this temperature is hotter than those in the Sun when fusion processes occur (about 60 million °F), because researchers here on Earth can't replicate the intense pressure generated by gravity at the heart of a star while on Earth, temperatures in an artificial sun must be much greater to compensate.
That means heating plasma to at least 180 million °F in a tokamak for atomic nuclei to smash together rapidly enough to kick start nuclear fusion.
KSTAR was the first device to break this limit, generating these temperatures in plasma for just 1.5 seconds in 2018.
The team improved on this 2019, maintaining plasma at this temperature for eight seconds. KSTAR upped the ante on this again in December 2020 by generating plasma at this temperature and maintaining it for 20 seconds.
While KSTAR's new record can't beat EAST's record in terms of time, what the researchers on the project have managed to do is heat plasma to this important temperature of 180 million °F.
The KSTAR team was also able to constrain this plasma for a record 30 seconds.
The Korea Institute of Fusion Energy will now seek to improve KSTAR to increase the time that it can maintain plasma at a temperature of 180 million °F. The aim will be to achieve containment of this super-hot plasma for at least 300 seconds.
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Lab grown cell-based meat - >>> The USDA Just Made Its First Investment In Lab-Grown Meat
In its first investment into the lab-grown meat space, the USDA awarded $10 million to Tufts University to establish the National Institute for Cellular Agriculture.
Veg News
by ANNA STAROSTINETSKAYA
OCTOBER 15, 2021
https://vegnews.com/2021/10/usda-lab-grown-meat
The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) just made its first investment in the lab-grown meat industry. The government agency will award $10 million over the course of five years to Tufts University to establish the National Institute for Cellular Agriculture, a flagship American cultivated protein research center. The project aims to create a more resilient food system by developing “outreach, extension, and education for the next generation of professionals” in the field of cellular agriculture—which revolves around the use of a small amount of animal cells to create real meat and other animal proteins, replacing the environmentally damaging practice of raising and slaughtering animals for food.
“USDA’s historic funding for a National Institute for Cellular Agriculture is an important advancement for cultivated meat research and science,” Appropriations Committee Chair Representative Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) said in a statement. “I am pleased that USDA’s leadership continues to recognize the important role these technologies can play in combating climate change and adding much needed resiliency to our food system.”
The research will take place primarily at the Tufts School of Engineering in Massachusetts and will be led by Tufts University Professor David Kaplan, a renowned cultivated meat expert, who will be working with researchers from Virginia Tech, Virginia State, University of California-Davis, MIT, and University of Massachusetts-Boston. While traditional agriculture accounts for 14.5 to 16.5 percent of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions globally, cellular agriculture’s carbon footprint is far lower as it does not rely on feeding, maintaining, transporting, slaughtering, and processing billions of animals every year.
“This is a major step forward in our work to tackle climate change, infuse resiliency into our food systems, and build a stronger, more sustainable future,” said US Representative Katherine Clark (D-MA) whose district includes Tufts University of Engineering. “I am thrilled that this historic grant will be housed in the 5th District at Tufts University, a true leader in cultivated meat research, and am eager to see this transformative research brought to life.”
Lab-grown meat in the US
The USDA’s historic investment will help to support critical research necessary to rapidly scale cell-based meat production, as a major obstacle in getting the novel meat to market is knocking down its price. Currently, a variety of cellular agriculture and aquaculture companies are working in the US to create lab-grown beef to cell-based lobster and every animal product in between.
However, only Eat Just—a California-based food tech startup known best for its mung bean-based JUST Egg—has been successful in obtaining regulatory approval for cell-based meat and it did so outside of the US. Late last year, Singapore became the first country in the world to allow the sale of cell-based meat after Eat Just completed a rigorous approval process for chicken produced under its GOOD Meat cellular agriculture brand.
Now, Eat Just is setting its sights on Qatar—which is poised to become the second country to grant regulatory approval—where it recently partnered with Doha Venture Capital and Qatar Free Zones Authority to build the first-ever cultured meat production facility in the Middle East and Northern Africa region. In May, the company raised $170 million to fund the proliferation of its cell-based meat with the aim of making traditionally raised chicken obsolete.
“Cutting emissions from food production is crucial to limiting climate change, and alternative proteins are the sleeper solution to creating the rapid change we need to meet this moment,”
—GFI Founder and President Bruce Friedrich
While the US has yet to grant regulatory approval for cell-based meat, many are hopeful that it will soon follow in Singapore’s footsteps, including Dominique Crenn—the first woman in the US to ever be awarded three Michelin stars. In August, Crenn announced that she is working with UPSIDE Foods (formerly known as Memphis Meats) to put the startup’s lab-grown chicken on her menu, pending regulatory approval, at Atelier Crenn—which would mark the first time Crenn has served meat at the San Francisco restaurant since 2018.
Funding alternative protein development
The $10 million grant to establish the National Institute for Cellular Agriculture is part of the USDA’s larger $146 million investment in sustainable agricultural research. While private investors, including actors Leonardo DiCaprio and Ashton Kutcher, have made sizable investments in alternative protein development, public investments in this industry, particularly in the US, have lagged far behind.
GFI outlined this glaring funding gap in data it released last month which showed that public investment for alternative protein research and development—which rivals clean energy in climate change mitigation potential—was just $55 million in 2020, bringing the all-time public investment total to $112 million. By comparison, public investment for clean energy R&D was $27 billion in 2020, a whopping 490 times more than the public investment for alternative protein R&D in 2020 and 241 times the total public funds ever invested in the industry.
To address this funding gap, since 2019, GFI has awarded $13 million to grantees working to create more sustainable foods through its annual grant program. This year, GFI awarded $5 million to support 22 projects: 13 working to develop cultivated meat, seven focusing on plant-based meat, and two dedicated to fermentation-derived protein.
“Cutting emissions from food production is crucial to limiting climate change, and alternative proteins are the sleeper solution to creating the rapid change we need to meet this moment. Alternative proteins are the one food-based climate solution that scales and, with government support, can decarbonize global food production,” GFI Founder and President Bruce Friedrich said in a statement. “Governments should invest significantly and now in alternative proteins as a key part of climate strategy that simultaneously addresses the increasing risk of pandemics, antibiotic resistance, and food insecurity.”
GFI welcomes the USDA’s $10 million investment and is advocating for $2 billion in federal funds to be allocated toward research and development in alternative proteins.
For more about cell-based meat, read:The World’s First Lab-Grown Sushi Bar To Open In San FranciscoStartup Aleph Farms Makes Lab-Grown Meat In SpaceWorld’s First Cell-Based Chicken Restaurant Opens In Israel
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$HYSR Low Cost Hydrogen Evolution Catalyst
>>> Microrobots designed to deliver drugs to diseased cells find inspiration in starfish larva
Medical X Press
Nov 9, 2021
by Rahel Künzler
ETH Zurich
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-11-microrobots-drugs-diseased-cells-starfish.html
The new microbot inspired by starfish larva stirs up plastic beads. Credit: Cornel Dillinger/ETH Zurich
Researchers at ETH Zurich have developed a tiny robot that mimics the movement of a starfish larva. It is driven by sound waves and equipped with tiny hairs that direct the fluid around it, just like its natural model. In the future, such microswimmers could deliver drugs to diseased cells with pinpoint accuracy.
Among scientists, there is great interest in tiny machines that are set to revolutionize medicine. These microrobots, often only a fraction of the diameter of a hair, are made to swim through the body to deliver medication to specific areas and perform the smallest surgical procedures.
The designs of these robots are often inspired by natural microorganisms such as bacteria or algae. Now, for the first time, a research group at ETH Zurich has developed a microrobot design inspired by starfish larva, which use ciliary bands on their surface to swim and feed. The ultrasound-activated synthetic system mimics the natural arrangements of starfish ciliary bands and leverages nonlinear acoustics to replicate the larva's motion and manipulation techniques.
Hairs to push liquid away or suck it in
At first glance, the microrobots bear only scant similarity to starfish larva. In its larval stage, a starfish has a lobed body that measures just a few millimeters across. Meanwhile, the microrobot is a rectangle and ten times smaller, only a quarter of a millimeter across. But the two do share one important feature: a series of fine, movable hairs on the surface, called cilia.
A starfish larva is blanketed with hundreds of thousands of these hairs. Arranged in rows, they beat back and forth in a coordinated fashion, creating eddies in the surrounding water. The relative orientation of two rows determines the end result: Inclining two bands of beating cilia toward each other creates a vortex with a thrust effect, propelling the larva. On the other hand, inclining two bands away from each other creates a vortex that draws liquid in, trapping particles on which the larva feeds.
Depending on whether it is swimming or feeding, the starfish larva generates different patterns of vortices.
Artificial swimmers beat faster
These cilia were the key design element for the new microrobot developed by ETH researchers led by Daniel Ahmed, who is a Professor of Acoustic Robotics for life sciences and healthcare. "In the beginning," Ahmed said, "we simply wanted to test whether we could create vortices similar to those of the starfish larva with rows of cilia inclined toward or away from each other.
To this end, the researchers used photolithography to construct a microrobot with appropriately inclined ciliary bands. They then applied ultrasound waves from an external source to make the cilia oscillate. The synthetic versions beat back and forth more than ten thousand times per second—about a thousand times faster than those of a starfish larva. And as with the larva, these beating cilia can be used to generate a vortex with a suction effect at the front and a vortex with a thrust effect at the rear, the combined effect "rocketing" the robot forward.
In their lab, the researchers showed that the microrobots can swim in a straight line through liquid such as water. Adding tiny plastic beads to the water made it possible to visualize the vortices created by the microrobot. The result is astonishing: both starfish larva and microrobots generate virtually identical flow patterns.
Next, the researchers arranged the ciliary bands so that a suction vortex was positioned next to a thrust vortex, imitating the feeding technique used by starfish larva. This arrangement enabled the robots to collect particles and send them out in a predetermined direction
Besides swimming, the new microrobot can collect particles and steer them in a predetermined direction.
Ahmed is convinced that this new type of microrobot will be ready for use in medicine in the foreseeable future. This is because a system that relies only on ultrasound offers decisive advantages: ultrasound waves are already widely used in imaging, penetrate deep inside the body, and pose no health risks.
The fact that this therapy requires only an ultrasound device makes it cheap, he adds, and hence suitable for use in both developed and developing countries.
Ahmed believes one initial field of application could be the treatment of gastric tumors. Uptake of conventional drugs by diffusion is inefficient, but having microrobots transport a drug specifically to the site of a stomach tumor and then deliver it there might make the drug's uptake into tumor cells more efficient and reduce side effects.
Sharper images thanks to contrast agents
But before this vision can be realized, a major challenge remains to be overcome: imaging. Steering the tiny machines to the right place requires that a sharp image be generated in real time. The researchers have plans to make the microrobots more visible by incorporating contrast agents such as those already used in medical imaging with ultrasound.
In addition to medical applications, Ahmed anticipates this starfish-inspired design to have important implications for the manipulation of smallest liquid volumes in research and in industry. Bands of beating cilia could execute tasks such as mixing, pumping and particle trapping.
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>>> World's largest 3D-printed neighborhood to break ground in Texas
November 4, 2021
by Oscar Holland
CNN
https://edition.cnn.com/style/article/icon-3d-printed-homes-austin
Anew property development in Austin, Texas, is set to become the world's largest community of 3D-printed homes.
Scheduled to break ground next year, the project will feature 100 single-story houses "printed" on-site using advanced robotic construction and a concrete-based building material.
Digital renderings of the neighborhood, unveiled last week, show rows of properties with their roofs covered in solar cells. The homes will each take approximately a week to build, according to firms behind the development.
The project is a collaboration between homebuilding company Lennar and ICON, a Texas-based construction firm specializing in 3D-printed structures. The houses have been co-designed by the Danish architecture practice Bjarke Ingels Group.
Although ICON would not disclose the cost of the project, the company said its technology is significantly faster and cheaper than conventional construction methods -- partly because it requires less manual labor. The building process will involve five of the firm's 46-foot-wide robotic "Vulcan" printers, which pipe out a concrete mix called Lavacrete according to a pre-programmed home design.
The firms behind the project said houses can be significantly cheaper and quicker to produce using 3D printing.
The firm said it can produce homes up to 3,000 square feet in size, and has previously printed the walls of a house measuring 400 to 500 square feet in just 24 hours (spread over the course of "several days"). Roofs, windows, doors and finishes will be added afterward by Lennar.
In a press release, ICON's co-founder and CEO Jason Ballard described the Austin neighborhood as a "watershed moment in the history of community-scale development."
"Construction-scale 3D printing not only delivers higher-quality homes faster and more affordably, but fleets of printers can change the way that entire communities are built for the better," he is quoted as saying. "The United States faces a deficit of approximately 5 million new homes, so there is a profound need to swiftly increase supply without compromising quality, beauty, or sustainability and that is exactly the strength of our technology."
In a statement, Martin Voelkle, partner at Bjarke Ingels Group, described the 3D-printed buildings -- and their photovoltaic roofs -- as "significant steps towards reducing waste in the construction process, as well as towards making our homes more resilient, sustainable and energy self-sufficient."
Advocates of 3D-printed construction believe it can greatly reduce labor costs and construction time. Research has also suggested that the method can slash waste and carbon dioxide emissions. The ability of 3D printers to construct buildings without formwork (the concrete molds that cement is typically poured into) can significantly reduce overall use of the material, which is responsible for about 8% of global CO2 emissions annually.
A recent study in Singapore, for instance, found that constructing a bathroom unit using 3D printing produced almost 86% less carbon dioxide than conventional construction methods -- and was over 25% cheaper. Critics have meanwhile pointed out that 3D concrete printing still relies on a non-renewable material, and that structures' safety and stability are not specifically addressed by existing building codes.
Is this 3D-printed home made of clay the future of housing?
'Not science fiction'
While the newly announced Austin project is ICON's largest to date, the firm has been using 3D printing to build social, or subsidized, housing in Mexico and Texas since 2018. The company also recently revealed that it is working with NASA to make building materials from moon dust, with a view to constructing a lunar base.
Earlier this year, ICON unveiled plans for a separate four-home development in East Austin. In 2019, the company also announced that it is building a community of 50 homes for low-income families in Tabasco, Mexico.
ICON has yet to unveil prices for the homes in its new Austin development. Earlier this year, the first printed home to hit the market in the US -- a one-story, 1,400-square-foot space in Riverhead, New York -- was listed for $299,000. Another 3D printing firm, Palari Group, recently unveiled plans to build 15 3D-printed properties near Palm Springs, California, with prices for three-bedroom homes starting at $595,000.
Speaking to CNN in 2019, Ballard said that his company's technology could "deliver a much higher-quality product to the housing market at a speed and price" that is "typically not available" for low-income families. His firm believes its technology can also be used to combat homelessness and may be deployed during disaster relief.
"3D printing is not science fiction," Ballard said at the time. "We have crossed that threshold from science fiction into reality. In the future, our bet is that this will be humanity's best hope for a housing solution that matches our highest values and ideals."
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>> Near Miss: The Solar Superstorm of July 2012
NASA Science
July 23, 2014
https://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2014/23jul_superstorm/
If an asteroid big enough to knock modern civilization back to the 18th century appeared out of deep space and buzzed the Earth-Moon system, the near-miss would be instant worldwide headline news.
Two years ago, Earth experienced a close shave just as perilous, but most newspapers didn't mention it. The "impactor" was an extreme solar storm, the most powerful in as much as 150+ years.
"If it had hit, we would still be picking up the pieces," says Daniel Baker of the University of Colorado.
Baker, along with colleagues from NASA and other universities, published a seminal study of the storm in the December 2013 issue of the journal Space Weather. Their paper, entitled "A major solar eruptive event in July 2012," describes how a powerful coronal mass ejection (CME) tore through Earth orbit on July 23, 2012. Fortunately Earth wasn't there. Instead, the storm cloud hit the STEREO-A spacecraft.
"I have come away from our recent studies more convinced than ever that Earth and its inhabitants were incredibly fortunate that the 2012 eruption happened when it did," says Baker. "If the eruption had occurred only one week earlier, Earth would have been in the line of fire.
Extreme solar storms pose a threat to all forms of high-technology. They begin with an explosion--a "solar flare"—in the magnetic canopy of a sunspot. X-rays and extreme UV radiation reach Earth at light speed, ionizing the upper layers of our atmosphere; side-effects of this "solar EMP" include radio blackouts and GPS navigation errors. Minutes to hours later, the energetic particles arrive. Moving only slightly slower than light itself, electrons and protons accelerated by the blast can electrify satellites and damage their electronics. Then come the CMEs, billion-ton clouds of magnetized plasma that take a day or more to cross the Sun-Earth divide. Analysts believe that a direct hit by an extreme CME such as the one that missed Earth in July 2012 could cause widespread power blackouts, disabling everything that plugs into a wall socket. Most people wouldn't even be able to flush their toilet because urban water supplies largely rely on electric pumps.
Before July 2012, when researchers talked about extreme solar storms their touchstone was the iconic Carrington Event of Sept. 1859, named after English astronomer Richard Carrington who actually saw the instigating flare with his own eyes. In the days that followed his observation, a series of powerful CMEs hit Earth head-on with a potency not felt before or since. Intense geomagnetic storms ignited Northern Lights as far south as Cuba and caused global telegraph lines to spark, setting fire to some telegraph offices and thus disabling the 'Victorian Internet."
A similar storm today could have a catastrophic effect. According to a study by the National Academy of Sciences, the total economic impact could exceed $2 trillion or 20 times greater than the costs of a Hurricane Katrina. Multi-ton transformers damaged by such a storm might take years to repair.
"In my view the July 2012 storm was in all respects at least as strong as the 1859 Carrington event," says Baker. "The only difference is, it missed."
In February 2014, physicist Pete Riley of Predictive Science Inc. published a paper in Space Weather entitled "On the probability of occurrence of extreme space weather events." In it, he analyzed records of solar storms going back 50+ years. By extrapolating the frequency of ordinary storms to the extreme, he calculated the odds that a Carrington-class storm would hit Earth in the next ten years.
The answer: 12%.
"Initially, I was quite surprised that the odds were so high, but the statistics appear to be correct," says Riley. "It is a sobering figure."
In his study, Riley looked carefully at a parameter called Dst, short for "disturbance – storm time." This is a number calculated from magnetometer readings around the equator. Essentially, it measures how hard Earth's magnetic field shakes when a CME hits. The more negative Dst becomes, the worse the storm. Ordinary geomagnetic storms, which produce Northern Lights around the Arctic Circle, but otherwise do no harm, register Dst=-50 nT (nanoTesla). The worst geomagnetic storm of the Space Age, which knocked out power across Quebec in March 1989, registered Dst=-600 nT. Modern estimates of Dst for the Carrington Event itself range from -800 nT to a staggering -1750 nT.
In their Dec. 2013 paper, Baker et al. estimated Dst for the July 2012 storm. "If that CME had hit Earth, the resulting geomagnetic storm would have registered a Dst of -1200, comparable to the Carrington Event and twice as bad as the March 1989 Quebec blackout."
The reason researchers know so much about the July 2012 storm is because, out of all the spacecraft in the solar system it could have hit, it did hit a solar observatory. STEREO-A is almost ideally equipped to measure the parameters of such an event.
"The rich data set obtained by STEREO far exceeded the relatively meagre observations that Carrington was able to make in the 19th century," notes Riley. "Thanks to STEREO-A we know a lot of about the magnetic structure of the CME, the kind of shock waves and energetic particles it produced, and perhaps most importantly of all, the number of CMEs that preceded it."
It turns out that the active region responsible for producing the July 2012 storm didn't launch just one CME into space, but many. Some of those CMEs "plowed the road" for the superstorm.
A paper in the March 2014 edition of Nature Communications by UC Berkeley space physicist Janet G. Luhmann and former postdoc Ying D. Liu describes the process: The July 23rd CME was actually two CMEs separated by only 10 to 15 minutes. This double-CME traveled through a region of space that had been cleared out by yet another CME four days earlier. As a result, the storm clouds were not decelerated as much as usual by their transit through the interplanetary medium.
"It's likely that the Carrington event was also associated with multiple eruptions, and this may turn out to be a key requirement for extreme events," notes Riley. "In fact, it seems that extreme events may require an ideal combination of a number of key features to produce the 'perfect solar storm.'"
"Pre-conditioning by multiple CMEs appears to be very important," agrees Baker.
A common question about this event is, how did the STEREO-A probe survive? After all, Carrington-class storms are supposed to be mortally dangerous to spacecraft and satellites. Yet STEREO-A not only rode out the storm, but also continued taking high-quality data throughout.
"Spacecraft such as the STEREO twins and the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (a joint ESA/NASA mission) were designed to operate in the environment outside the Earth's magnetosphere, and that includes even quite intense, CME-related shocks," says Joe Gurman, the STEREO project scientist at the Goddard Space Flight Center. "To my knowledge, nothing serious happened to the spacecraft."
The story might have been different, he says, if STEREO-A were orbiting Earth instead of traveling through interplanetary space.
"Inside Earth's magnetosphere, strong electric currents can be generated by a CME strike," he explains. "Out in interplanetary space, however, the ambient magnetic field is much weaker and so those dangerous currents are missing." In short, STEREO-A was in a good place to ride out the storm.
"Without the kind of coverage afforded by the STEREO mission, we as a society might have been blissfully ignorant of this remarkable solar storm," notes Baker. "How many others of this scale have just happened to miss Earth and our space detection systems? This is a pressing question that needs answers."
If Riley's work holds true, there is a 12% chance we will learn a lot more about extreme solar storms in the next 10 years—when one actually strikes Earth.
Says Baker, "we need to be prepared."
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>>> What My Brain Scan Revealed About the Science of Persuasion
Neuroscientists have come a long way in understanding how and when people come around to a different point of view.
Bloomberg
October 15, 2021
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-10-15/science-of-persuasion-what-happens-in-brain-when-we-change-our-mind
What exactly happens when we change our mind? Pursuing this question is how I found myself, one recent morning, lying in a fancy brain scanner known as an fMRI machine and watching cartoons at the Waisman Center at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. On the other side of a glass screen, a technician and two neuroscientists watched me—or, more accurately, watched my brain.
Cartoons notwithstanding, this is serious work. Understanding the neural basis of persuasion is a tantalizing prize for scientists and doctors, and obviously (and less nobly) businesses, politicians, and anyone else trying to get others to do their bidding. But the science is difficult enough to border on science fiction. Unlike regions of the brain that control motion, chiefly the motor cortex in the frontal lobe, the portions that control thought and persuasion are spread out. There’s no quadrant of the brain that lights up an fMRI machine when we’re thinking, “Huh, I guess you’re right.”
Still, pioneering neuroscientists are trying to decode persuasion. They want to isolate various types of high-level thinking—for example, can you separate neurons used in analysis from those used in memory?—and find out whether it’s even possible to identify the moment someone changes his mind. One idea that has gained currency: studying the effects of environment and interpersonal relationships on our openness to a particular message.
That’s why neuroscientists Chris Cascio and Matt Minich had me watch goofy video clips. Would I react less favorably to an image of tidy, meticulously sorted recycling bins if I had just watched the animated bear from the 2012 comedy Ted toss litter out a car window, or Stewie and Brian from the TV show Family Guy dock a small boat at an island composed of trash? Those images were meant to coax my brain into associating piles of garbage with a sense of normality.
Similarly, what would happen if I were shown text about ocean acidification after watching Marge Simpson hack down a forest, or pictures of people exercising after watching the characters from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia sit on a beach snacking on a booze-soaked ham? I won’t need to convince you that U.S. males selected these clips.
Occipital lobe
The structure responsible for visual perception, including color, motion, and form. Activation here gives away that I was looking at stuff.
Supplementary motor area, tied to movement control. This lit up probably because I took the technician’s parting words seriously as he slid me into the fMRI: “Try not to move.”
Dorsomedial prefrontal cortex
Activity here signifies thinking about what others are thinking—what neuroscientists call “mentalizing.” It means I could have been weighing the social validation I’d earn by heeding calls to recycle, exercise more, and the like.
Handles basic functions such as breathing, not high-level processes like persuasion. Parts of the brain just randomly light up sometimes. As one of the researchers told me, “Individual brains are messy.”
Here’s where persuasion researchers pay the most attention. This structure is tied to reward processing and positive valuation—neuroscientist-speak for finding something valuable. Activity indicates I found the messages compelling.
The experiment was run on 45 volunteers. (Excluding me: My readings won’t be included in the final results.) Findings are preliminary, and Cascio and Minich are preparing papers based on them.
The work focuses on the ventromedial prefrontal cortex and the ventral striatum, which appear to be important while we’re talked into something. These areas kick in when we decide whether something holds value and when we want to gain acceptance or approval from others.
Cascio and Minich, who work in the Communication, Brain and Behavior Lab at the university’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication, also check in on conflict detection regions such as the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex and the anterior insula to see what happens when a message is at odds with our beliefs. Minich, a doctoral student and avid runner, got interested in that question after years of pooh-poohing the idea of barefoot running—and then finding himself on a shoeless 8-mile jog after reading the book Born to Run. “What was that cognitive process?” he asks. (He’s back to running in shoes.)
As I lay in the scanner, taking in images and video clips on a computer screen, the researchers had a good idea of what areas would engage. They also cautioned against drawing conclusions based solely on my brain. “Single brains are messy,” says Cascio, the lab’s director. “We’re interested in what’s consistent across people.”
I watched the messages—mostly slides with text—and rated them with a clicker in my right hand on a scale of 1 to 4, 4 being most persuasive. Then I looked at cartoons, and then I watched and clicked through more messages. In my other hand was an alarm button in case of sudden claustrophobia. (As anyone who’s had an MRI is well aware, these machines are tight.)
Unlike in the movies, Cascio and Minich couldn’t see the results right away. They had to crunch the data over the next few days and then formulate brain maps. The data showed that when I watched some of the clips that made unhealthy or ungreen behavior seem normal, and then a persuasive message about the environment or health based on what I’d lose out on by, say, not exercising or recycling, the brain regions associated with value and acceptance showed less activity. But when they showed me messages that accentuated the positive, those regions lit up.
In other words: Persuasive messages are resonant even when they go against social norms, if they’re framed in the context of gains rather than losses. That’s important for knowing how to convince people when society is resistant to an idea. For example, an asset manager might base advertising on all the traveling, dining out, and home remodeling that could await investors aspiring for an early retirement, instead of dwelling on the potentially penurious future of those who don’t contribute to savings plans.
Is that manipulative? Yes, by definition. Creepy? It certainly could be, assuming neuroscientists ever deliver a practical model of persuasion. And they’re a long way off.
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>>> Beijing Weather Modification Office
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beijing_Weather_Modification_Office
The Beijing Weather Modification Office is a unit of the Beijing Meteorological Bureau tasked with weather control in Beijing, China, and its surrounding areas, including parts of Hebei and Inner Mongolia.[1][2][3]
The Beijing Weather Modification Office form a part of China's nationwide weather control effort, believed to be the world's largest; it employs 37,000 people nationwide, who seed clouds by firing rockets and shells loaded with silver iodide into them.[4] According to Zhang Qiang, head of the Office, cloud seeding increased precipitation in Beijing by about one-eighth in 2004; nationwide, similar efforts added 210 cubic kilometres (7.4×1012 cu ft) of rain between 1995 and 2003.[5]
The work of the Office is largely aimed at hail storm prevention or making rain to end droughts; they have also induced precipitation for purposes of firefighting or counteracting the effect of severe dust storms, as they did in the aftermath of one storm in April 2006 which dropped 300,000 tonnes of dust and sand on the city and was believed to have been the largest in five years.[2][6] Their technology was also used to create snow on New Year's Day in 1997.[7] Other proposed future uses for induced precipitation include lowering temperatures in summer, in hopes of reducing electricity consumption.[5] More prominently, they were enlisted by the Chinese government to ensure that the 2008 Summer Olympics were free of rain, by breaking up clouds headed towards the capital and forcing them to drop rain on outlying areas instead.[4] The office created a snowstorm in November 2009.[8][9]
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>>> Mind Control for the Masses -
No Implant Needed
Wired
1-2-20
https://www.wired.com/story/nextmind-noninvasive-brain-computer-interface/
A wave of startups wants to make brain-computer interfaces accessible without needing surgery. Just strap on the device and think.
WHEN SID KOUIDER showed up at Slush, the annual startup showcase in Helsinki, wearing an ascot cap and a device he claimed would usher in a new era of technological mind control, no one thought he was crazy. No, he was merely joining the long line of entrepreneurs (see: Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg) who believe that we will one day manage our machines with our thoughts.
The quest to meld mind and machine dates back to at least the 1970s, when scientists began, in earnest, to drill into peoples’ skulls and implant the first brain-computer interfaces—electrodes that translate brain cell activity into data. Today, BCIs can regulate tremors from Parkinson’s disease and restore some basic movement in people with paralysis. But they are still surgically implanted, and still quite experimental. Even so, the likes of Musk already envision a future where we’ll all have chips in our brains, and they’ll replace our need for keyboards, mouses, touchscreens, joysticks, steering wheels, and more.
Of course, that won’t happen anytime soon. The mysteries of the mind remain vast, and implanting hardware in healthy brains—well, forget about that, at least until the FDA deems it safe (light-years away). In the meantime, a wave of companies is betting on bringing Mind Control Lite to the masses with a neural interface that requires no surgery at all.
That’s where Kouider comes in. His startup, NextMind, makes a noninvasive neural interface that sits on the back of one’s head and translates brain waves into data that can be used to control compatible software. Kouider’s vision begins with simple tasks (sending text messages with a thought; calling up a specific photo in your camera roll with passing thoughts) and ends somewhere close to science fiction (controlling every device in our world, like the sorcerer in Fantasia). “This is real,” he said onstage at Slush, “and the possibilities are endless.”
Going the nonsurgical route comes with some trade-offs, namely all that skin and bone between your soggy brain and any device that’s trying to read the neural signals it emits. On the other hand, it’s cheaper, it’s safer, and it’s much easier to iterate or push software updates when you don’t need to open someone’s head. And for all the promise of BCIs, people first need to see that this stuff can be useful at all. For that, devices like NextMind’s do the trick.
I had a chance to try out the NextMind device during a demo in December, a few weeks after Kouider gave his Slush talk. He had taken a flight from Paris to San Francisco and carried the device casually in his bag. It weighs 60 grams, about as much as a kiwi fruit, and bears a passing resemblance to flattened TIE fighter.
The NextMind device is basically a dressed-up electroencephalogram, or EEG, which is used to record electrical activity in the brain. It’s not so different from the tools Kouider used as a professor of neuroscience before he ran NextMind. His lab, in Paris, specialized in studies of consciousness. In a hospital setting, EEGs often require the use of gel and some skin preparation, but recently researchers have developed functional dry electrodes that only require contact with the skull. The NextMind device uses these, along with a proprietary material that Kouider says is “very sensitive to electrical signals.” (He wouldn’t tell me what, exactly, the material is.)
Kouider placed the device on my head; it comes with little comb-like teeth that brush through hair to hold the device in place, right on the back of the skull. (Kouider, who is bald, wears it clipped to the back of his hat.) There, the device’s electrodes are well positioned to record activity from the visual cortex, a small area in the rear of the brain. Then it translates the signals to digital data, processes them on the computer, uses a machine learning algorithm to decipher them, and translates those signals into commands.
On a laptop, Kouider walked me through a calibration exercise to create my “neural profile”—in essence, how my visual cortex lit up in response to my eyes focusing on specific things. (I followed a series of flashing triangles around the screen; you only have to do this once, and only for a couple minutes.) The NextMind device is designed to work on anyone, but it works faster when someone has had practice. Kouider says it’s about a neural feedback loop: Ah, when I focus on that, then that happens on the screen.
Neural profile generated, I was ready to play some games. NextMind will announce its developer kit at CES in January. In an effort to court developers, the company has designed a few demos to show off what its device can do. I tried one that’s a riff on Nintendo’s Duck Hunt, which Kouider played as a kid. As ducks danced across the screen, Kouider leaned over. “Try to shoot him,” he whispered, “with your brain.”
I focused my gaze on the ducks and, in less than a second, they exploded. This little magic trick was repeated through a series of demos. I changed the channel on a mock TV set by glancing at one corner of the screen. I cracked a digital vault by concentrating on the right numbers on a pincode. I changed the colors on a set of smart lightbulbs that Kouider had set up for me. It’s hard to say why you’d need to do these things with your mind, but when you do, you really feel like a Jedi.
NextMind isn’t the only company trying to develop, for the masses, noninvasive BCIs. Another startup, CTRL-Labs, released a developer kit last year for a similar noninvasive neural interface. It also uses dry electrodes, but this device is an armband and captures signals from nerves. Facebook acquired the company for close to $1 billion in September.
A few months earlier, I had a chance to try out CTRL-Labs’ device myself. The demo was designed to show off the company’s vision: “The question at CTRL-Labs is not, how do we make our devices more capable?” as cofounder Thomas Reardon told an audience at Slush in 2018. “It's, how do we ourselves become more capable?” I strapped the device to my arm and played some games. One involved a dinosaur jumping over a series of obstacles. I thought jump and, with just a twitch of my arm, the dinosaur jumped. At one point, Patrick Kaifosh (then CTRL-Labs’ CTO, now Facebook Reality Labs’ research manager) entered the credentials to unlock his laptop by simply staring at it. Neuroauthentication, he called it.
That device, like most of the work in BCIs, makes use of the motor cortex, the part of the brain that manages movement. Reardon’s breakthrough was in singling out the neurons in your spinal cord, which send electrical signals to your arm and hands, rather than going to the brain region itself. Most of the clinical work around BCI also involves the motor cortex, in part because so much of the research has focused on movement disorders: Parkinson’s, paralysis, and so on. But Kouider thinks the visual cortex offers a richer set of neural signals for people trying to control their personal devices. When I asked him why so much of the work was being done in the motor cortex, he paused, and then said, “I think that’s because they’re making a mistake.”
Because the NextMind device utilizes signals associated with sight, the technology can feel a little like gussied-up eye-tracking. So what if you can change the channel with your eyes? People have been doing that for years. (After the demo, Kouider claimed his BCI could work even if I closed my eyes.) Right now, you control things with your gaze. Soon, Kouider believes, the device will be able to tap into our imagination, turning visual thoughts into actions.
The problem with some of these BCI devices, though, is not whether they can become fast enough to enhance gameplay or control smart-home devices. It’s whether anyone cares to. InteraXon, a Canadian startup, used to make a head-worn device that could control lights with the power of thought but eventually gave it up. “Frankly, you could just turn the thing with your hand much more readily,” the company’s cofounder, Ariel Garten, told Scientific American. While, arguably, there would be accessibility use cases for this technology, InteraXon pivoted to make Muse, a meditation headband.
As he gins up interest in his developer kit, Kouider is pitching the idea that NextMind’s device and other noninvasive neural interfaces of its ilk will be like the touchscreen, or the computer mouse: the thing that upends the way we interact with our personal technology. At this early stage, though, BCI is more like the virtual-reality headset than the Next Great Interface: mind-blowing in their demos, but easy to put back in the box.
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>>> Magnet milestones move distant nuclear fusion dream closer
by FRANK JORDANS, SETH BORENSTEIN and DANIEL COLE
Associated Press
Sep. 9, 2021
https://www.chron.com/news/article/Magnet-milestones-move-distant-nuclear-fusion-16445139.php
SAINT-PAUL-LES-DURANCE, France (AP) — Teams working on two continents have marked similar milestones in their respective efforts to tap an energy source key to the fight against climate change: They’ve each produced very impressive magnets.
On Thursday, scientists at the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor in southern France took delivery of the first part of a massive magnet so strong its American manufacturer claims it can lift an aircraft carrier.
Almost 60 feet (nearly 20 meters) tall and 14 feet (more than four meters) in diameter when fully assembled, the magnet is a crucial component in the attempt by 35 nations to master nuclear fusion.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology scientists and a private company announced separately this week that they, too, have hit a milestone with the successful test of the world’s strongest high temperature superconducting magnet that may allow the team to leapfrog ITER in the race to build a ‘sun on earth.’
Unlike existing fission reactors that produce radioactive waste and sometimes catastrophic meltdowns, proponents of fusion say it offers a clean and virtually limitless supply of energy. If, that is, scientists and engineers can figure out how to harness it — they have been working on the problem for nearly a century.
Rather than splitting atoms, fusion mimics a process that occurs naturally in stars to meld two hydrogen atoms together and produce a helium atom — as well as a whole load of energy.
Achieving fusion requires unimaginable amounts of heat and pressure. One approach to achieving that is to turn the hydrogen into an electrically charged gas, or plasma, which is then controlled in a donut-shaped vacuum chamber.
This is done with the help of powerful superconducting magnets such as the 'central solenoid' that General Atomics began shipping from San Diego to France this summer.
Scientists say ITER is now 75% complete and they aim to fire up the reactor by early 2026.
"Each completion of a major first-of-a-kind component — such as the central solenoid's first module — increases our confidence that we can complete the complex engineering of the full machine,” said ITER's spokesman Laban Coblentz.
The ultimate goal is to produce ten times more energy by 2035 than is required to heat up the plasma, thereby proving that fusion technology is viable.
Among those hoping to beat them to the prize is the team in Massachusetts, which said it has managed to create magnetic field twice that of ITER's with a magnet about 40 times smaller.
The scientists from MIT and Commonwealth Fusion Systems said they may have a device ready for everyday use in the early 2030s.
“This was designed to be commercial,” said MIT Vice President Maria Zuber, a prominent physicist. “This was not designed to be a science experiment.”
While not designed to produce electricity itself, ITER would also serve as the blueprint for similar but more sophisticated reactors if it is successful.
Proponents of the project argue that even if it fails, the countries involved will have mastered technical skills that can be used in other fields, from particle physics to designing advanced materials capable of withstanding the heat of the sun.
All nations contributing to the project — including the United States, Russia, China, Japan, India, South Korea and much of Europe — share in the $20 billion cost and benefit jointly from the scientific results and intellectual property generated.
The central solenoid is just one of 12 large U.S. contributions to ITER, each of which is built by American companies, with funds allocated by Congress.
“Having the first module safely delivered to the ITER facility is such a triumph because every part of the manufacturing process had to be designed from the ground up,” said John Smith, director of engineering and projects at General Atomics.
The company spent years developing new technologies and methods to make and move the magnet parts, including coils weighing 250,000 pounds, across their facility and then around the globe.
“The engineering know-how that was established during this period is going to be invaluable for future projects of this scale,” said Smith.
“The goal of ITER is to prove that fusion can be a viable and economically practical source of energy, but we are already looking ahead at what comes next,” he added. "That’s going to be key to making fusion work commercially, and we now have a good idea of what needs to happen to get there.”
Betting on nuclear energy — first fission and then fusion — is still the world's best chance drastically cut greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2050, said Frederick Bordry, who oversaw the design and construction of another fiendishly complex scientific machine, the Large Hadron Collider at CERN.
“When we speak about the cost of ITER, it’s peanuts in comparison with the impact of climate change,” he said. “We will have to have the money for it.”
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>>> Get Ready for the Nuclear Fusion Revolution
It’s been hyped for decades. But scientific progress — and commercial competition — may soon produce a truly groundbreaking clean-energy technology.
Bloomberg
August 23, 2021
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-08-23/nuclear-fusion-breakthrough-may-be-cause-for-climate-optimism?srnd=premium
It sounds thoroughly implausible: a technology that could replicate the chemistry of the stars, unleash nearly unlimited clean energy and safely power the world for centuries.
Yet sustainable nuclear fusion, long hypothesized, took a step closer to reality this month. Scientists at the National Ignition Facility, part of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, announced that they had produced about 10 quadrillion watts of fusion power after blasting a hydrogen capsule with an array of laser beams. The burst lasted only a fraction of a second. But it offered significant new evidence that harnessing fusion energy could one day be feasible.
Celebration isn’t in order just yet, of course. Hype has plagued the field for decades (fusion energy, the old joke goes, is just 20 years away and always will be). And the remaining challenges to a workable reactor are daunting. Even the yield produced at the NIF — about 70% of the experiment’s energy input — is still a long way from a viable energy source.
Yet there are reasons for optimism. One is that other innovations in recent years are likely to speed progress in fusion. Advances in high-speed computing, artificial intelligence, superconducting magnets, 3-D printing, materials science and more all should help overcome challenges to a workable fusion device. The breakthrough at NIF, in fact, came about in large part due to better computer modeling.
Surging private-sector enthusiasm should also help. About two dozen companies are now engaged in fusion projects, with investors committing some $300 million to them last year alone, according to BloombergNEF. Several have projects well underway. General Fusion, funded partly by Jeff Bezos, plans to break ground on a demonstration plant next year. Commonwealth Fusion Systems, backed by Bill Gates, expects to demonstrate net energy gain by 2025.
Even granting that such goals may prove optimistic, the benefits to this work could be profound. Harnessing fusion could one day mean an effectively limitless energy source. It would produce no long-term waste, emit no greenhouse gases and pose no risk of meltdowns. President Joe Biden’s goal of reaching net-zero emissions by 2050 — implausible on current trends — looks much more realistic with such projects in the mix. It’s little wonder fusion is often called the “holy grail” of energy production.
Unlike the cup of Arthurian legend, however, this one is subject to some worldly constraints.
One is technological. It’s no exaggeration to say that building a workable fusion reactor is one of the most complex challenges ever undertaken. Immense technical problems still need solving. Yet federal funding for domestic fusion research has declined by 40% in real terms over the past four decades. An influx in last year’s spending bill should help, but a longer-term commitment is needed to overcome science and engineering hurdles, build a skilled workforce, and lure more talented researchers to U.S. labs.
Money presents a second challenge. Realistically, no company is going to build a fusion reactor without huge new investments. As two recent reports from advisory bodies have suggested, Congress could help by aiming to produce a pilot plant within two decades. With safeguards in place, public-private partnerships with fusion companies could help accelerate this process, control costs and mitigate risks. NASA’s successful collaboration with SpaceX — which hugely reduced the cost of spaceflight in less than a decade — offers a useful model.
A final impediment is regulation. Subjecting fusion projects to the same kinds of licensing requirements that apply to traditional fission reactors would impose serious delays, raise costs and impede investment in otherwise promising companies. Given that fusion is a far safer technology, such rules would make little sense — especially at a time when the government is otherwise making zero-emissions technology one of its highest priorities.
As the world has learned over the past few decades, there are no magic solutions to climate change. Fusion energy will be no exception. Amid the dreary headlines, though, advances like this one amount to real progress — and, if governments lend support where they should, real cause for hope.
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>>> The World's First Small Nuclear Reactor Is Now Under Construction
https://www.zerohedge.com/energy/worlds-first-small-nuclear-reactor-now-under-construction
China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) launched on Tuesday the construction of the first onshore small nuclear reactor in the world, in its efforts to gain a leading position in the modular reactors market.
Construction began on the demonstration project at the Changjiang Nuclear Power Plant in the Hainan province in southern China, local publication Global Times reports.
The start of the construction for the ‘Linglong One’ small nuclear reactor comes four years later than initially planned, due to delays in regulatory clearances, Reuters notes.
The small reactor was originally planned to see the start of the construction phase in 2017.
A year earlier, the Linglong One small reactor had become the first to pass a safety review from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
Once completed and commissioned, the small nuclear reactor is expected to meet the annual power needs of around 526,000 households, Global Times reports, without giving a timeline for the completion.
CNNC has been developing small reactor technology for the past ten years, the outlet says.
According to the World Nuclear Association, interest is growing in small and simpler technology to generate nuclear power, due to lower costs and the desire to provide power away from large grid systems.
“Overall SMR research and development in China is very active, with vigorous competition among companies encouraging innovation,” the association says, noting that the U.S., the UK, and Canada also develop and support their respective domestic small reactor technology.
In the United States, Advanced Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) are a key part of the Department of Energy’s goal to develop safe, clean, and affordable nuclear power options, DOE says. The Department has provided support to the development of light water-cooled SMRs, which are under licensing review by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and will likely be deployed in the late 2020s to early 2030s.
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>>> Arm’s cheap and flexible plastic microchip could create an ‘internet of everything’
The Verge
by James Vincent
July 23, 2021
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/arm-e2-80-99s-cheap-and-flexible-plastic-microchip-could-create-an-e2-80-98internet-of-everything-e2-80-99/ar-AAMthGG?ocid=uxbndlbing
If you think microchips are ubiquitous now, appearing in everything from washing machines to lampposts, just wait until circuits can be printed onto plastic, paper, and fabric for the price of pennies. That’s what chip designer Arm is promising, with the company this week unveiling a new prototype plastic-based microchip named PlasticARM.
PragmatIC Plastic chips would be flexible and cheap; meaning they could be printed pretty much anywhere.
This isn’t the first flexible chip we’ve seen, but it is the most complex. PlasticARM contains a 32-bit Cortex-M0 CPU (the cheapest and simplest processor core in Arm’s Cortex-M family), as well as 456 bytes of ROM and 128 bytes of RAM. It’s comprised of over 18,000 logic gates, which Arm says is at least 12 times more than the previous plastic-based chip.
The chip was designed in coordination with flexible electronics maker PragmatIC, and as the company’s designers explain in a paper published in Nature, it doesn’t yet have the same functionality of silicon-based designs. For example, it’s only capable of running a trio of test programs hardwired into its circuits during fabrication, though Arm’s researchers say they’re working on future versions that will allow new code to be installed.
Arm’s PlasticARM chip isn’t the fastest or most efficient, but it is the most flexible.
What makes PlasticARM and similar chips so special is their use of flexible components; in this case, metal-oxide thin-film transistors or TFTs. These can be printed onto surfaces that bend and flex without degrading, unlike processors based on brittle silicon substrates. This makes it possible to cheaply print processors onto materials like plastic and paper.
As Arm’s researchers explain in their paper, this would allow microchips to be put to all sorts of uses that would seem wasteful today. You might have chips printed into every milk bottle for example that detect spoilage, replacing the use of sell-by-dates. Arm says this will create a new “internet of everything,” with chips integrated into “more than a trillion inanimate objects over the next decade.”
Plastic-based chips have major drawbacks, though, and will certainly not replace silicon processors in the short term. They’re simply too inefficient in terms energy consumption, density, and performance. PlasticARM consumes 21 milliwatts of power, for example, but 99 percent of that is essentially wasted, with only 1 percent captured for computation. The chip is also comparatively large, with an area of 59.2 square millimeters. As noted by AnandTech, that’s around 1,500 times the size of a silicon-based Cortex M0 processor.
As Arm research engineer James Myers told New Scientist: “It won’t be fast, it won’t be energy efficient, but if I’m going to put it on a lettuce to track shelf life, that’s the idea.”
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Drone cloud seeding - >>> It's so hot in Dubai that the government is artificially creating rain
CBS News
by Sophie Lewis
https://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/topstories/its-so-hot-in-dubai-that-the-government-is-artificially-creating-rain/ar-AAMrBee?ocid=uxbndlbing
With temperatures in Dubai regularly surpassing 115 degrees Fahrenheit, the government has decided to take control of the scorching weather.
Scientists in the United Arab Emirates are making it rain — artificially — using electrical charges from drones to manipulate the weather and force rainfall across the desert nation. Meteorological officials released video footage this week showing a downpour over Ras al Khaimah, as well as several other regions.
The new method of cloud seeding shows promise in helping to mitigate drought conditions worldwide, without as many environmental concerns as previous methods involving salt flares.
Annually, the United Arab Emirates receives about four inches of rain per year. The government is hoping that regularly zapping clouds to generate rain will help to alleviate some of the arid nation's annual heatwaves.
According to research from the University of Reading, scientists created the storms using drones, which hit clouds with electricity, creating large raindrops. The larger raindrops are essential in the hot country, where smaller droplets often evaporate before ever hitting the ground.
"It's moving to think that the rainfall technology I saw today, which is still being developed, may someday support countries in water-scarce environments like the UAE," Mansoor Abulhoul, Ambassador of the United Arab Emirates to the UK, said during a visit to the University of Reading in May, where he was shown demonstrations of the new technology.
"Of course, our ability to manipulate weather is puny compared to the forces of nature," Vice-Chancellor Robert Van de Noort said during the visit. "We are mindful that we as a University have a big role to play, by working with global partners to understand and help prevent the worst effects of climate change."
In 2017, researchers at the university were awarded $1.5 million in funding for what they call "Rain Enhancement Science", AKA man-made rainstorms. The UAE's total investment in rain-making projects is $15 million, part of the country's "quest to ensure water security."
"The water table is sinking drastically in UAE," University of Reading professor and meteorologist Maarten Ambaum told BBC News. "And the purpose of this is to try to help with rainfall."
The UAE is one of the first countries in the Gulf region to use cloud seeding technology, the National Center of Meteorology said. A version of the concept is used in at least eight states in the western U.S., according to The Scientific American.
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>>> Bezos-Backed Fusion Startup Picks U.K. to Build First Plant
Canada’s General Fusion plans to start testing a $400 million pilot facility outside London by 2025.
Bloomberg
By Jonathan Tirone
June 16, 2021
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-06-16/bezos-backed-fusion-startup-picks-u-k-to-build-first-plant?srnd=premium
A nuclear fusion startup backed by billionaire Jeff Bezos will build its first pilot power plant outside of London, potentially accelerating a new way of generating clean energy.
Canada’s General Fusion Inc. is one of about two dozen startups trying to harness the power that makes stars shine. Rather than splitting atoms like in traditional fission reactors, fusion plants seek to bind them together at temperatures 10 times hotter than the sun. Doing so releases huge quantities of carbon-free energy with no atomic waste.
While national laboratories have been trying to build economically-sustainable fusion machines for more than a half century, private investors have only recently joined the pursuit as urgency builds to find new sources of emissions-free power to slow global warming.
“There are a lot of people preparing to take shots on goal right now,” General Fusion Chief Executive Officer Chris Mowry said in an interview. “We now have the first best but there are lots of others lining up.”
Globally, more than $1.5 billion has poured into private fusion startups such as TAE Technologies Inc. and Commonwealth Fusion Systems in the U.S. Public funding from 35 countries has gone toward the $22 billion International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) being built in southern France. The project was supposed to begin testing in four years, though that date is now in doubt after pandemic lockdowns snarled supply chains.
General Fusion’s announcement follows a call in April by the U.S. National Academies of Science for the country to accelerate plans to build a pilot fusion reactor capable of generating electricity as soon as 2035. Last November, U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson offered $17 billion in support for green industries including nuclear power. His government wants an operating fusion plant based on the ITER design by 2040.
Mowry said the U.K.’s support for the General Fusion pilot plant was “very meaningful,” but didn’t elaborate on the size of its financial support. General Fusion, which raised $100 million in its last round of fundraising, is again preparing to tap investors to help finance the project. "At some point we're going to go public," Mowry said.
Construction is expected to begin next year on the company’s $400 million facility near the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy in Oxfordshire. “There’s a great talent pool there that knows how to operate and maintain large fusion machines,” said Mowry.
Culham is currently home to the Joint European Torus (JET) and has become one of the world’s most important fusion-science hubs. But much of the work on that project, which has endured over four decades, will wind down once ITER begins testing in southern France as government funding is redirected toward the newer project. Both JET and ITER are derived from designs first tested in the Soviet Union. Lasers and powerful electromagnets are arrayed around a supercooled, doughnut-shaped container to hold superheated plasma in place that is used to fuse the atoms.
General Fusion’s machine takes a radically different approach. Its magnetized-target fusion reactor compresses a hydrogen target surrounded by a swirling wall of molten metal. Some 500 synchronized pistons that encompass a cylinder fire at a rate of six to 60 shots per minute. Heat from the plasma is transferred into the metal, where it can then be channeled to turbines that produce power.
And unlike the massive future fusion reactors envisioned by ITER that can generate more than 1,000 megawatts of electricity each, General Fusion’s machines will produce just 115 megawatts of power — not enough energy to light up a large city, but more than enough to stabilize grids filled with intermittent solar and wind power. “That’s the sweet spot of distributed energy,” according to Mowry, an engineer who formerly worked at General Electric Co.
Not all physicists agree that smaller fusion reactors like the one General Fusion is building will generate the most cost-efficient energy. But scientists acknowledge that private investors are helping to balance pure research against commercial opportunity.
“It is time to dispel the ideal that fusion is an academic endeavor in pursuit of an energy unicorn,” said International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi. “We can see this is around the corner. We are approaching this moment fast.”
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Pollen-sized particles give bees immunity to insecticides
By Nick Lavars
June 01, 2021
Scientists have developed a new type of ingestible microparticle that detoxifies common insecticides and could help address dwindling bee populations across the globe pervach/Depositphotos
Bees play a critical role in pollinating many of plants that humans eat and are therefore key to food security, but populations continue to decline rapidly around the world. A number of factors are contributing to this, including habitat loss and drought, but a tiny new ingestible particle developed at Cornell University takes aim at a key one, by detoxifying deadly insecticides before they can do these important critters harm.
Common insecticides like neonicotinoids, which the EU banned in 2016, are used to protect growing crops from hungry insects, but often bees get caught in the crossfire. These toxic substances interfere with the molecules that help bees produce energy, and can disrupt their sleep cycles and leave them immobile and starving.
The new technology is described as an antidote for these types of chemicals, with the researchers first focusing on what are known as organophosphate-based insecticides, which make up around one third of the market. The Cornell University scientists developed a microparticle the size of pollen, which can be packed with enzymes that break down and completely detoxify these insecticides before the bee absorbs them.
The particles can be mixed into pollen patties or sugar water and fed to the bees, with a protective casing safeguarding the enzymes as they pass through the stomach, which is acidic and would otherwise break them down. They instead travel safely through to the midgut, where digestion takes place, and the enzymes can go to work breaking down and detoxifying the organophosphates.
This was first demonstrated through in vitro experiments and then on live bees in the lab, where the insects were fed both an organophosphate pesticide and the particles, while another control group was administered only the organophosphate pesticide. The scientists observed a 100 percent survival rate in the bees fed the particles, while all the unprotected control bees died in the following days.
“We have a solution whereby beekeepers can feed their bees our microparticle products in pollen patties or in a sugar syrup, and it allows them to detoxify the hive of any pesticides that they might find,” says James Webb, a co-author of the paper and CEO of Beemmunity, a spinoff company that is continuing to work on the technology.
Beemmunity is developing the technology to tackle an even broader range of insecticides. Many of these, including neonicotinoids, work by targeting insect proteins. To combat this, Beemmunity is developing particles that, instead of enzymes, feature a special absorptive oil, and a casing made from insect proteins. The idea is that rather than breaking the insecticide down, the particle soaks up and entraps the insecticide within the casing, which can then be safely passed by the bee.
“This is a low-cost, scalable solution which we hope will be a first step to address the insecticide toxicity issue and contribute to the protection of managed pollinators,” says senior author Minglin Ma.
Beemmunity is conducting trials across 240 hives in New Jersey this US summer, with plans to launch its products in February 2022, all going well.
The research was published in the journal Nature Food.
Source: Cornell University
https://newatlas.com/environment/pollen-sized-particles-bees-immunity-insecticides/
>>> 'Vegan spider silk' provides sustainable alternative to single-use plastics
Phys.org
by University of Cambridge
6-10-21
https://phys.org/news/2021-06-vegan-spider-silk-sustainable-alternative.html
Researchers have created a plant-based, sustainable, scalable material that could replace single-use plastics in many consumer products.
The researchers, from the University of Cambridge, created a polymer film by mimicking the properties of spider silk, one of the strongest materials in nature. The new material is as strong as many common plastics in use today and could replace plastic in many common household products.
The material was created using a new approach for assembling plant proteins into materials which mimic silk on a molecular level. The energy-efficient method, which uses sustainable ingredients, results in a plastic-like free-standing film, which can be made at industrial scale. Non-fading 'structural' color can be added to the polymer, and it can also be used to make water-resistant coatings.
The material is home compostable, whereas other types of bioplastics require industrial composting facilities to degrade. In addition, the Cambridge-developed material requires no chemical modifications to its natural building blocks, so that it can safely degrade in most natural environments.
The new product will be commercialized by Xampla, a University of Cambridge spin-out company developing replacements for single-use plastic and microplastics. The company will introduce a range of single-use sachets and capsules later this year, which can replace the plastic used in everyday products like dishwasher tablets and laundry detergent capsules. The results are reported in the journal Nature Communications.
For many years, Professor Tuomas Knowles in Cambridge's Yusuf Hamied Department of Chemistry has been researching the behavior of proteins. Much of his research has been focused on what happens when proteins misfold or 'misbehave', and how this relates to health and human disease, primarily Alzheimer's disease.
"We normally investigate how functional protein interactions allow us to stay healthy and how irregular interactions are implicated in Alzheimer's disease," said Knowles, who led the current research. "It was a surprise to find our research could also address a big problem in sustainability: that of plastic pollution."
As part of their protein research, Knowles and his group became interested in why materials like spider silk are so strong when they have such weak molecular bonds. "We found that one of the key features that gives spider silk its strength is the hydrogen bonds are arranged regularly in space and at a very high density," said Knowles.
Co-author Dr. Marc Rodriguez Garcia, a postdoctoral researcher in Knowles' group who is now Head of R&D at Xampla, began looking at how to replicate this regular self-assembly in other proteins. Proteins have a propensity for molecular self-organization and self-assembly, and plant proteins in particular are abundant and can be sourced sustainably as by-products of the food industry.
"Very little is known about the self-assembly of plant proteins, and it's exciting to know that by filling this knowledge gap we can find alternatives to single-use plastics," said Ph.D. candidate Ayaka Kamada, the paper's first author.
The researchers successfully replicated the structures found on spider silk by using soy protein isolate, a protein with a completely different composition. "Because all proteins are made of polypeptide chains, under the right conditions we can cause plant proteins to self-assemble just like spider silk," said Knowles. "In a spider, the silk protein is dissolved in an aqueous solution, which then assembles into an immensely strong fiber through a spinning process which requires very little energy."
"Other researchers have been working directly with silk materials as a plastic replacement, but they're still an animal product," said Rodriguez Garcia. "In a way we've come up with 'vegan spider silk'—we've created the same material without the spider."
Any replacement for plastic requires another polymer—the two in nature that exist in abundance are polysaccharides and polypeptides. Cellulose and nanocellulose are polysaccharides and have been used for a range of applications, but often require some form of cross-linking to form strong materials. Proteins self-assemble and can form strong materials like silk without any chemical modifications, but they are much harder to work with.
The researchers used soy protein isolate (SPI) as their test plant protein, since it is readily available as a by-product of soybean oil production. Plant proteins such as SPI are poorly soluble in water, making it hard to control their self-assembly into ordered structures.
The new technique uses an environmentally friendly mixture of acetic acid and water, combined with ultrasonication and high temperatures, to improve the solubility of the SPI. This method produces protein structures with enhanced inter-molecular interactions guided by the hydrogen bond formation. In a second step the solvent is removed, which results in a water-insoluble film.
The material has a performance equivalent to high performance engineering plastics such as low-density polyethylene. Its strength lies in the regular arrangement of the polypeptide chains, meaning there is no need for chemical cross-linking, which is frequently used to improve the performance and resistance of biopolymer films. The most commonly used cross-linking agents are non-sustainable and can even be toxic, whereas no toxic elements are required for the Cambridge-developed technique.
"This is the culmination of something we've been working on for over ten years, which is understanding how nature generates materials from proteins," said Knowles. "We didn't set out to solve a sustainability challenge—we were motivated by curiosity as to how to create strong materials from weak interactions."
"The key breakthrough here is being able to control self-assembly, so we can now create high performance materials," said Rodriguez Garcia. "It's exciting to be part of this journey. There is a huge, huge issue of plastic pollution in the world, and we are in the fortunate position to be able to do something about it."
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>>> 9 Neurotechnology Companies Merging Humans and Machines
Nanalyze
https://www.nanalyze.com/2021/06/neurotechnology-companies-humans-machines/
The days of living inside a biological human shell are almost over. At least that’s what futurists are hoping for, as we roll out more advanced neurotechnology that allows humans to interface directly with machines.
We previously looked at how the startup landscape of brain-computer interfaces (BCI) is changing. There’s Kernel, a startup that provides BCI technology through its new business model, neuroscience as a service (NaaS). Mr. Elon Musk’s pet neuroscience company, Neuralink, showed off a monkey playing Pong using just its thoughts. And researchers have been able to develop a BCI technology where electrodes were jabbed into the brain of a patient with paralysis and gave him the power to write on a screen using just his mind. A recent Nature article highlights another breakthrough in BCI – a new high-performance technology that can allow users to write up to 90 characters per minute at 94% accuracy with just their thoughts. That’s almost as fast and (though maybe less accurate) as hormone-filled teenagers texting late at night.
Current and future applications for neurotechnology using BCI.
As Arthur C. Clarke once said, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” While we’re still waiting for telekinesis and telepathy to be made available through the app store, here are nine neurotechnology companies creating simpler magic between human flesh and machine.
Neurotechnology Companies for Mobility
New Yawk City-based Synchron was founded in 2016 to develop bioelectronic devices to help patients with limited movement and disabilities to interface with the physical world. We covered Synchron after they’d taken in $10 million from a Series A in 2016. Previous investors included the shadowy government agency known as DARPA. The company has since raised a total of $42.6 million after a recent Series B infusion of $32.6 million led by Khosla Ventures. The startup is building minimally invasive devices and received breakthrough device designation from the FDA last August. The current Stentrode device is embedded into the jugular vein and uses sensors to pick up on brain activity.
The Stentrode platform.
The company is taking on amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a neurodegenerative disease that leads to loss of motor control over muscles. Two patients with ALW were able to control computers with mouse clicks of 92% accuracy and type at 14 to 20 words per minute.
Founded in 2008, Blackrock Neurotech is a startup headquartered in Salt Lake City that’s raised $10 million, with bloodthirsty billionaire Peter Thiel throwing his own cash into the ring. The company is developing implantable technologies to help patients walk, talk, see, hear, and feel. Blackrock Neurotech claims to be the first company to provide tetraplegic patients the power to control robotic limbs using the mind, as well as being the first to help ALS patients communicate with a mind-driven audio speller. Its technology relies on FDA-approved in-brain implants with an expiration date of seven years, with wireless devices in the works.
Implantable electronics for various neurotechnology applications, such as treating chronic pain or epilepsy.
Implantable electronics for various neurotechnology applications, such as treating chronic pain or epilepsy.
The company also provides neurotechnology hardware for a range of applications, from treating pain to epilepsy.
Founded in 2016, Bahstun-based Pison Technology is a startup that’s pulling together the hardware and software to build out wearable technologies that allow humans to control machines using gestures. The company is a spin-off from MIT and has raised $7.1 million that included Bose after a Series A that closed earlier this year. Pison is developing neurotechnology that captures the neuromuscular signals on the surface of the skin, which are analyzed using its proprietary machine learning algorithms to control electronics. The idea is for the wearable technology to predict the intention of the user, rather than the user’s body having to actually act out the motion. Pison’s first target are patients with ALS. The goal is to provide them with a way to access the digital world using mind control.
Neurotechnology Companies for Virtual Reality and Gaming
MindPortal, a San Francisco-based company founded in 2019, brought in $5 million following a recent Seed round that included everyone’s favorite tech accelerator, Y Combinator. MindPortal is building a non-invasive wearable brain-computer interface where users connect with virtual reality and simulations, as well as communicate with each other using thoughts. Imagine shooting goons in Call of Duty with just your mind and 14-year-old gamers instantly telling you how much you suck telepathically after pulling off a headshot. We’re talking serious gameplay here. And much like other VR applications, more adult activities will probably become its most lucrative niche. The device looks like something Geordi La Forge might wear:
MindPortal’s technology uses a patent-pending wearable that can record human brain activity with 10 to 100 times more precision than EEG technology. We’re not really sure what that means in practical terms, but it sounds impressive.
Israel-headquartered Wearable Devices was founded in 2014 to develop a brain-computer interface using a wristband called Mudra. It has raised a total of $3.5 million after bringing in $1.5 million through a Convertible Note that closed in 2019. The wristband picks up on a set of six hand gestures originating from the nervous system through the wrist. Deep-learning algorithms translate electronic signals and classify them as a user-intended gesture. Each gesture defines and transmits a unique interaction with the device. There is a version specifically for Apple Watch users.
Mudra wristbands from Wearable Devices.
The company is focusing its attention on applications in the augmented reality and gaming industries. Time to take Wii Sports to the next level.
San Francisco-based Arctop was founded in 2016 and has brought in $5 million from a Seed round of $4 million that closed in 2019. The startup is developing software to decode brain signals and is providing its product as a software-as-a–service (SaaS). The AI software converts feelings and attention into real-time responses, and is designed to interface with headphones, AR/VR systems, and earbuds for gaming, e-learning, digital health, and video/audio streaming.
Neurotechnology Company for Cyborgs
Between human-like robots and realistic Japanese “waifu” simulators, the Land of the Rising Sun has always been at the forefront of technology. Tokyo-based MELTIN MMI is taking brain-computer interface to the next level with a focus on biosensors and robotic arms. Founded in 2013, the company has raised $20.6 million after $18.3 million was brought in 2018 from an investment led by Sumitomo Dainippon Pharma, one of the major pharmaceutical companies in Japan.
MELTIN MMI - Cyborgs
Finally, no more crushed bottles.
The company’s technology relies on taking in bio-signals and converting them into highly sensitive robotic movements with a total of 12 types of complex movements. MELTIN MMI has developed a cyborg hand that can interpret signals and do such complex tasks such as holding an egg (without cracking it), picking up a laptop, and unscrewing a bottle cap from a bottle. Response time between the operator and the robotic hand is 0.02 seconds. The company has even been able to operate the robot more than 11,000 miles away. No Zoom-like lag here.
Neurotechnology Companies for Productivity
Founded in 2017, Maryland-based MindX has raised $1.9 million after a $1.75 million Seed round that closed in January 2020. The company is building a look-and-think interface that allows users to control digital objects spatially on displays. Its core technology was developed out of a $200 million DARPA-funded research program at John Hopkins University. Not much is known about the company as it just came out of stealth mode in 2019.
Founded in 2018, Brooklyn-based Neurosity has brought in $175k following a Seed round to design headwear that teaches programmers to concentrate for long periods of time. The technology is called the Crown, which looks a lot like sleek headphones for your brain. The device is meant to guide users into the flow state as a productivity hack. Other uses for the technology include monitoring mental illness and preventing road-side fatigue. Red Bull not required.
Neurosity - Crown
Embedding BCI into headgear has never been sexier.
Conclusion
The next digital revolution will be played on fully immersive virtual landscapes hooked up to your brain and interfaced with reality. And the next unicorn might just be the one that discovers how to create advertising space in these hybrid worlds. Maybe one day we’ll be able to build entire robotic manufacturing empires using just our minds, while sippin’ pineapple coladas on the beach. A true digital nomad’s dream.
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>>> 6 Biomimicry Companies Helping Nature Heal Itself
Nanalyze
https://www.nanalyze.com/2021/05/biomimicry-companies-nature-heal/
Since when did Americans go from talking about the likelihood of weekend rain to practically fist fighting over changing weather patterns? “Save the planet!” they’ll demand of you, as they wave their placards in the air. Seems a bit arrogant to think that mankind is capable of determining nature’s fate, but the debate is irrelevant. We should be cleaning up the planet and aligning ourselves more closely with nature, regardless of which political party flag we’re waving. It couldn’t be better said than below:
Nature is the single most powerful technology known to man, and we know so little of how it works. The method in which cells reproduce and perform tasks is the most efficient manufacturing platform conceivable, which is why we speak about companies like Ginkgo Bioworks with a hushed reverence. If mankind can somehow harness the superior properties of observable nature, we can transform entire industries, all while saving the planet during the process.
Nature is pleased with simplicity. And nature is no dummy.
The Promise of Biomimicry
Biomimicry, biomimetics, nature-inspired, these are all terms for products or materials that are based on inspirations taken from nature. We first covered this topic in our 2017 piece on 8 Biomimicry Examples Taken From Actual Startups, and more recently in last year’s piece on Bolt Threads and Spider Web Clothing. The latter is a startup that’s mimicking a spider’s incredibly functional threads. While entrepreneurs have been trying to mimic nature for decades, this time it’s different. This time, we have lots of tools at our disposal, things like artificial intelligence, gene editing, genetic sequencing, and the list goes on. Today, we’re going to look at six biomimicry companies taking inspiration from nature to help her heal.
Better Filters from Butterflies
In 2015, researchers found that the glasswing butterfly’s transparent wings are caused by nanopillars that are irregularly arranged and feature a random height and width distribution. This is different from other anti-reflection coatings found in nature, and just one of many interesting things you can learn by studying the wings of a butterfly. And that’s exactly what our first startup has been doing.
Founded in 2017, Bahstun startup Metalmark has taken in an undisclosed amount of funding with the most recent being an April 2020 seed round. The team took inspiration from a butterfly’s wings to develop indoor air purification systems that destroy, rather than trap, volatile organic compounds, viruses, and ultrafine particles. The platform can be applied to a variety of use cases such as specialty coatings, emission control, chemical production, fuel cells, and carbon dioxide conversion.
Initially, they’ll need to settle on a single use case and demonstrate product-market fit, something the CEO should know the importance of. Steering the Metalmark ship is Sissi Liu, an experienced executive with more than 17 years in cleantech and sustainability, entrepreneurship, and venture investing. She’s made sure they’ve locked up some intellectual property by licensing technology from the Wyss Institute and Harvard SEAS who have developed “a new type of catalytic coating that is inspired by the honeycomb-like nanostructure of a butterfly’s wing.”
The technology is said to significantly decrease the amount of precious metals used by the $20 billion catalytic converter industry. This use case is particularly notable given that catalytic converter theft has gone through the roof because rare precious metal prices have done the same.
Catalytic converter thefts reported to the King County Sheriff’s Office since 2019
The thief makes a couple hundred bones for a few minutes’ work while the car owner – or their insurance company – are out a few thousand. Maybe soon, stealing catalytic converters will become a thing of the past. That would also decrease the demand for rare metals which are often mined in emerging markets where environmental impact is an afterthought.
Wind Turbines from Kingfishers and Maple Leaves
It’s not just Japanese bullet trains that take inspiration from the kingfisher’s beak, a streamlined object that can be plunged into water without so much as a ripple forming. Founded in 2015, Canadian firm Biome Renewables has taken in $1.9 million in funding to develop the PowerCone, a turbine retrofit that can be fitted to 98% of all installed turbines around the world resulting in a +13% increase in annual energy production.
The kingfisher helped inspire the design of the mini-blades, and so has Canada’s iconic maple leaf, something that becomes obvious when you look at the above picture. The problem that’s being solved is called “root leakage,” and it refers to the center of a wind turbine not pulling its weight and actually dragging down the blades around it, an aerodynamics issue that’s far better explained by someone without an MBA. It all comes down to some bolt-on efficiency for the (as of 2017) 341,000 turbines spinning away on our revolving planet. Couple that hardware with some software, and a nice software-as-a–service (SaaS) offering could be sold to the more than 30 suppliers of wind turbines across the globe
Composites from Mantis Shrimp
When a mantis shrimp attacks its prey, it does so with such speed – about that of a .22 caliber bullet – that the water vaporizes. That weapon the shrimp uses is made of ultra-tough material, and that’s where inspiration was taken to do the same for existing composite materials, such as fiberglass, carbon fiber, and fiber.
Founded in 2019, Los Angeles startup Helicoid Industries has taken in $2.4 million in disclosed funding, all of which came in the form of a September 2020 seed round. Over $12 million was spent over the last 14 years by research departments and universities around the world developing Helicoid architecture before the company licensed it from the University of California at Riverside. The end result is a materials-agnostic method of stacking parallel fibers in order to make composites stronger, more impact-resistant?, more durable, and more sustainable, all at a lower production cost?. Increasing the lifespan of materials means we’ll need to manufacture less of them, which means the planet will be all the better for it.
An article by Manufacturing Technology Insights talks about how the Helicoid architecture technology was launched at the beginning of the year 2020, with more than two dozen composite materials manufacturers building prototypes using the structure and testing them for various applications. It’s a $100 billion industry that stands to benefit from an animal that shoots a stream of water when picked up, what the Chinese call a pissing shrimp.
Hydrophobic Cleaning Materials from Plants
The promise of hydrophobic materials has been a flagship idea for many a startup. For example, the lotus leaf is known for repelling both dirt and water because of its roughly-textured surface covered in one-nanometer crystals. Anyone remember Nano-Tex?
Founded in 2018, Pennsylvania’s own spotLESS Materials took inspiration from plants to develop a collection of non-stick coatings designed to use less water and less aggressive cleaners to keep surfaces clean (LESS stands for liquid-entrenched smooth surface). The whole thing started when Sir William of Gates wanted to investigate how to get poo to flush while using less water. The below picture explains the desired effect.
99% less bacteria, 95% less hard water stain, 90% less sticky
spotLESS fond that most hydrophobic coatings are excellent at repelling liquid, but fall short in their ability to repel sludge-like material. That led to a series of household products being developed which are now available on the company’s website. For $15, their toilet coating will make your servant’s life a whole lot easier.
In 2019, spotLESS received some very early-stage funding from Y Combinator and an angel investor to develop their technology into household products, which they did. While it sounds like a “build it and they will come” business model, they did receive some validation from a company that might help sell those products. One of our dividend champions, Procter & Gamble, endorsed spotLESS by crowning them a finalist in their 2021 innovation challenge.
We often see many nanomaterials companies selling products on their websites which is usually code for ‘we can’t sell them anywhere else.” Trying to sell a fast-moving-consumer-good (FMCG) product yourself is the kiss of death unless your name is Ron Popeil. Another round of funding would demonstrate continued traction and momentum for this interesting little biomimicry company.
Better HVAC Systems from Bees
Much like chavs in a Manchester nightclub, bees communicate using dances and pheromones. It’s the latter species that our next company took inspiration from. Founded in 2005, Canadian startup Encycle has taken in (based on various sources) at least $40 million in disclosed funding. Their most recent round, a $7.5 million financing round from a group of advanced energy investors, closed just days ago. That money was used to build Swarm Logic, a software-as-a–service (SaaS) solution that enables commercial and industrial customers to lower electric costs, maximize efficiency, and reduce environmental impact. The methods which bee swarms use to communicate helps Encycle’s small wireless controllers interact within smart buildings to reduce the single biggest energy expense – heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC).
If there’s one thing we like more than SaaS business models, it’s companies whose value proposition is saving other companies money. Swarm Logic customers routinely reduce HVAC electric costs and consumption by 10 to 20 percent with little or no capital investment. In the past couple of years, Encycle customers saved over $10.5 million in energy costs while reducing CO2 emissions by nearly 60,000 tons. Swarm Logic has been deployed at over 1,000 sites, a number which may soon become much larger. Last March, American conglomerate Honeywell integrated Encycle’s energy management software into Honeywell Multisite’s building automation system platforms. Let’s just say that news has greentech investors coming around in swarms.
Low CO2 Cement from Marine Organisms
Cement is the second most consumed product on Earth after water, so it’s no surprise we’ve been seeing lots of “green cement” startups cropping up. Our belief is that these green substitutes being peddled need to demonstrate superior economic value outside of just the “green” appeal. Subsidizing green solutions will never scale. That’s why we love companies that offer green products at the same or lower prices than their dirty substitutes – like Fortera.
Founded in 2017, this San Francisco company with undisclosed funding doesn’t say much about itself in Crunchbase, our go-to database for startup information. That’s probably because the team is too busy executing on their proprietary recarbonation (ReCarb™) process that works by tapping into the existing feedstock and equipment at cement plants to re-carbonate calcium oxide with waste CO2 from kilns. Production carries on – business as usual from the quarry to the kiln – while less temperature and fewer ingredients are required. The biomimetic aspect is the inspiration the company took from the way marine organisms build structures like coral reefs using calcium carbonate.
For every ton of Fortera cement used, almost half a ton of CO2 is permanently stored in whatever gets built. The best part? It costs 10% less than traditional cement without sacrificing quality or performance. Fortera’s product and production process are in the commercialization stages and will be consumer and partner ready by early 2022.
Conclusion
Most biomimicry companies have great stories that people can easily understand based on our common understanding of nature. The danger with some of these startups is that they’re a good idea looking for a problem.
Having an idea isn’t enough. There needs to be traction in the form of paying customers, especially reference customers, that can be used to sell even more products or services. Biomimicry is now attracting the ESG-types, which means investors need to be extra cautious. Just because an idea sounds good and will benefit the planet, doesn’t mean it’s going to scale.
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>>> Passport – A Smart City Parking Platform
Nanalyze
https://www.nanalyze.com/2021/05/passport-smart-city-parking-platform/
In the opening scene of the original Blade Runner from 1982, we’re introduced to a dystopian Los Angeles skyline filled with massive oil refineries perpetually spewing balls of fire into the air, generating an endless smog that covers the dark city of concrete skyscrapers and dim lights for miles. The year? 2019. So the screenwriters pretty much got it right on the money.
As populations rise and cities continue to gobble up more land across the globe, the number of megacities is projected to grow. Definitions differ based on what constitutes a city and how many people should live in a city to be labeled as a megacity. But according to the United Nations, which defines a megacity as a city with a population of at least 10 million people, there are at least 33 megacities around the world. Ten additional cities will gain megacity status by 2030.
United Nations - Megacities
More megacities are on their way.
We’re all aware of how mind-numbingly slow and inefficient local government can be. Just walk into any Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) and experience it for yourself. Imagine compounding all those dreadful inefficiencies with a growing world population, with at least two out of every three people living in cities by 2050, and municipalities will soon have a living nightmare on their hands. In one megacity, Jakarta, residents can’t even be uniquely identified because people sometimes share the same ID number. The ‘Rona already showed how vulnerable cities are to interruptions to municipal services, turning simple tasks like renewing a license into a multi-month ordeal.
Building the Future with Smart Cities
Some clever MBAs figured out that by throwing “smart” in front of a word, we can transform everyday concepts into high-tech solutions of the future. And smart cities are being touted as one of those solutions to the growing challenge of overcrowded urban centers. The smart city concept, like any other smart buzzword, entails using a combination of digital technology, data-driven approaches, the Internet of Things (IoT), and artificial intelligence (AI) to create a streamlined experience for those fortunate to live in a concrete jungle. By connecting time-consuming, manual processes like getting a permit from the City Hall or dealing with municipal waste to a digital platform, efficiencies can be gained, costs reduced, and waste decreased to build a better quality of living for citizens.
We discussed some benefits of smart cities in our past piece on 11 Smart City Solutions Creating Smarter Cities. There are many components of a smart city, each at varying levels of technological maturity.
Today, we want to talk about one component of smart cities that’s lacking just about everywhere outside of, perhaps, Tokyo – parking and transportation. According to McKinsey, smart cities that adopt smart-mobility applications can cut commuting times by 15 to 20 percent. That could mean time savings of 20 to 30 minutes per day, and fewer downloads of guided meditations podcasts to keep you from developing a bad case of road rage.
We previously looked at how smart cities are tackling their transportation problems using technologies such as geospatial intelligence. It’s about time too. How many of us have driven around for hours looking for a parking spot, only to discover the meter only takes coins and our change purse is at home? Or how many of us got stuck on the sixth floor of a parking structure, only to realize half the parking stalls are for permit-only residents? That’s where smart-parking startup called Passport changes the game.
Smarter Streets and Sidewalks
Founded in 2010, Charlotte-based Passport is a startup that’s focusing on payment systems for transportation and mobility, allowing cities and universities to streamline parking payments, enforcement, micro-mobility applications (scooters and bikes), and digital permitting, all on a single platform. The 11-year-old company has raised $213.5 million in disclosed funding so far, pulling a cool $90 million just this month. The Passport platform essentially connects existing parking, permitting, and metering systems to new secure digital payment options as a one-stop-shop for all things related to municipal transportation operations.
Permanent residents and visitors no longer need to waste time at City Hall and waiting for approvals through the byzantine bureaucracy of modern local government, or drive in circles after getting their designated parking spot snapped up by their neighbor’s extra large Ford pickup truck. Passport has over 1,000 clients and partnerships with some of America’s notable universities and biggest cities – Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, Omaha, Tucson, and Detroit – to help them increase efficiency and payment options for parking.
Use Cases for a Smart City Parking Platform
The smarter, simpler parking management experience touted by Passport is driven by its Parking Passport mobile app. The application is a single system that allows users to access a larger parking ecosystem with consistent rules, rates, and restrictions across all parking partners. That means parking customers don’t have to go running down the street to each individual street parking sign and read the obscure rules and restrictions on which day the street sweeper is coming or on which holidays parking is enforced. And that means fewer instances in which parking customers can contest the rules (there are actually companies now that handle parking tickets for people to get them off the hook which defeats the whole purpose of having rules and penalties for not following them). The vehicles of repeat offenders with open citation records can also be identified and penalized with higher parking fees. The result is a more seamless customer parking experience with less headache for everyone.
City Pulse - Passport Pay with the App
The Passport app provides users multiple options to pay for parking with several digital payment systems connected to their platform. That means users can keep their eye on the leftover time and continue to pay for more parking time before the meter runs out. No more rushing off in the middle of a happy ending to pay the parking meter, only to find out the parking enforcement officer has already slapped a hefty fine on your windshield.
Decreasing the number of manual transactions and processes also helps partners reduce wear-and-tear on their meters and kiosks. Over time, using Passport can extend the investment lifetime of partners’ parking hardware and lower processing costs from credit and debit card transactions. Not to mention there’s some nifty reporting made possible by the rich data sets being generated on the backend.
Passport - Parking Portal
The Passport Parking Portal tells you how much cash you’re raking in.
The Passport Operating System combines data from parking, enforcement, and permits that gives partners access to rate and restriction management in real-time. The parking data can also be analyzed for better decision-making. For example, if a parking lot seems to be congested on certain days or seasons, the operations team can decide to increase the rate for that day, or open up a second parking lot to ensure equitable access to parking for all visitors and residents.
A Case Study in Bahstun
If you misplaced your khakis and can’t start your car, you’re probably from Bahstun, a city that thought introducing mobile payments would decrease overall parking revenue because fewer tickets would be written. Passport’s salespeople handled these objections gracefully, and their baby was born – ParkBoston.
In the first year, the city was right, and parking violation revenues plummeted. But you won’t believe what happened next. Revenues from parking soared +240%. Turns out the decrease in ticket fees the city correctly predicted was offset by the increased revenue through the app, creating a win-win for parking officials and parkers alike. Moral of the story is, if you make it easier for people to pay, they end up paying you more.
ParkBoston was a private label application Passport built specifically for the City of Boston. The app has been featured as one of the “must-have” apps in Boston, and has won awards for its marketing efforts and events. What’s even more impressive is the time it took to deploy. In only 57 days, the platform was rolled out to all of Boston’s 8,000 meters.
The Bigger Picture
There’s a much bigger picture here than just a futuristic parking app. And we’re not just talking about all the big data that’s being generated. After all, there is no shortage of parking apps out there that promise similar benefits. Where we see the opportunity here is in the ability for additional revenues to be generated through dynamic pricing and enabling property owners with the ability to sell their spaces as they need. When you go on holiday, rent your apartment using Airbnb and your parking space using Passport. It should be that easy. If someone parks their electric scooter on your sidewalk, the app should automatically credit you with a small commission – courtesy of the scooter provider who is essentially renting your sidewalk.
Another more distant opportunity may be around autonomous driving. Sure, you could argue that autonomous cars won’t need parking spots because they’re always on the go, but you could also argue that they’ll probably need places to park too. All those nifty autonomous grocery delivery vehicles they’re building will need places to offload their goods. Of course, this opportunity can only be maximized if Passport can capture a lot of the parking market very quickly.
Conclusion
While we’re still a long way away from getting rid of the dense, ozone-rich smog that surrounds Los Angeles and other great cities of the United States, Passport can at least keep tourists and residents from clashing over 180 square feet segments of property. As more megacities blossom and parking becomes scarcer, smart cities need all the help they can get to make urban mobility more efficient and effective.
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Algae - Food, Biofuels, Animal Feed, Nutraceuticals / Pharmaceutical, Fertilizer, Water Treatment & Waste Water -
>>> AlgaEurope 2021 1
https://algaeurope.org/
Algae have become a multi-billion sector in terms of biotechnology development that is expected to grow rapidly, providing valuable goods and services in multiple applications. In spite of centuries of scientific and commercial interests, the term algae has not taxonomic meaning. In the light of rapidly growing business interests associated with the term algae, a clear, simple definition of algae is not only required, but essential for developing the necessary standards, regulatory and legal issues. Read more about algae.
One of the key success factors of AlgaEurope is the close cooperation between EABA - European Algae Biomass Association and DLG Benelux.
The main target of EABA is to act as a catalyst for fostering synergies among scientists, industrialists and decision makers in order to promote the development of research, technology and industrial capacities in the field of Algae. DLG Benelux is part of DLG International: the leading German consulting company of the DLG group for the Agribusiness and Food Industry offering international expertise in setting up trade fairs and providing project management and consultancy services - national and international. Read more about EABA and DLG Benelux.
AlgaEurope is a unique opportunity to learn and understand all about algae production and commercialization and interact with over 350 key players from more than 45 countries.
"Since years AlgaEurope is one of the most global compressive conferences about science, technology and business in the Algae Biomass sector organised by industry professionals."
Reasons to attend
To network and meet in person
To expand your knowledge and find solutions to problems
To present your ideas and product to others
For people to meet you
Learn beyond your field or interest
High quality (trade) visitors / delegates
Organised together with EABA; the Leading European Algae Biomass Association
Who should attend
Algae Technology Developers / Suppliers
Algae producers & cultivation plant owners and operators
Venture capitalists and financial investors for biotechnology
Food industries
Biofuels Network, Animal Feed Companies,
Nutraceuticals/Pharmaceutical Companies, Fertilizer suppliers
Water Treatment & Waste Water Professionals
Technology providers for cultivation, harvesting, dewatering, drying, oil extraction and processing
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>>> Solar Storms Are Back, Threatening Power Grids and Satellites
Bloomberg
By Brian K Sullivan
May 22, 2021
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-05-22/solar-storms-are-back-threatening-life-as-we-know-it-on-earth?srnd=premium
Power grid, radios, satellites are vulnerable as cycle builds
Scientists hope better forecasting will help prevent disaster
A few days ago, millions of tons of super-heated gas shot off from the surface of the sun and hurtled 90 million miles toward Earth.
The eruption, called a coronal mass ejection, wasn’t particularly powerful on the space-weather scale, but when it hit the Earth’s magnetic field it triggered the strongest geomagnetic storm seen for years. There wasn’t much disruption this time -- few people probably even knew it happened -- but it served as a reminder the sun has woken from a years-long slumber.
While invisible and harmless to anyone on the Earth’s surface, the geomagnetic waves unleashed by solar storms can cripple power grids, jam radio communications, bathe airline crews in dangerous levels of radiation and knock critical satellites off kilter. The sun began a new 11-year cycle last year and as it reaches its peak in 2025 the specter of powerful space weather creating havoc for humans grows, threatening chaos in a world that has become ever more reliant on technology since the last big storms hit 17 years ago. A recent study suggested hardening the grid could lead to $27 billion worth of benefits to the U.S. power industry.
“It is still remarkable to me the number of people, companies, who think space weather is Hollywood fiction,” said Caitlin Durkovich, a special assistant to U.S. President Joe Biden and senior director of resilience and response in the National Security Council, during a talk at a solar-weather conference last month.
The danger isn’t hypothetical. In 2017, a solar storm caused ham radios to turn to static just as the Category 5 Hurricane Irma was ripping through the Caribbean. In 2015, solar storms knocked out global positioning systems in the U.S. Northeast, a particular concern as self-driving cars become a reality. Airline pilots are at greater risk of developing cataracts when solar storms hit. Female crew see higher rates of miscarriages.
In March 1989, a solar storm over Quebec caused a province-wide outage that lasted nine hours, according to Hydro-Quebec’s website. A 2017 paper in the journal of the American Geophysical Union predicted blackouts caused by severe space weather could strike as much as 66% of the U.S. population, with economic losses reaching a potential $41.5 billion a day.
To head off such a catastrophe, President Barack Obama’s administration laid out a strategy to begin raising awareness of the dangers of massive solar storms and to asses the risks they pose. Last year, President Donald Trump signed the ProSwift bill into law, which aims to build up technology to improve forecasting and measurement of space weather events.
There’s debate among scientists about how much can be done to shield vulnerable parts of the planet’s infrastructure from the effects of solar storms. Steps such as using non-magnetic steel in transformers and installing more surge protectors in the grid could bolster resistance, but in the end the best defense against catastrophe might be better forecasting.
That would go a long way toward helping utilities prepare for shortages and making sure there are paths to back up their systems in case they lose power. In weeks, a new model developed by the University of Michigan will come online to help improve Earth-bound forecasting.
In the U.K., National Grid is building up its supply of spare transformers and conducting regular drills to deal with a major space weather event, said Mark Prouse, deputy director of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, a ministerial department.
Within the past 15 years, the U.S. and U.K. have built space weather forecasting centers that deliver daily outlooks on what may be coming from the sun for airlines, power grids, satellite owners and anyone else threatened by solar flares. While Earth-bound observers can see explosive storms erupt on the sun, they can’t tell the true nature of the threat -- exactly how potent it is -- until the blast reaches a set of satellites 1 million miles from the planet. At that point, there is only 60 to 90 minutes until it hits Earth.
“Our ability to understand and predict the solar cycle is still very limited,” said William Murtagh, director of the U.S. Space Weather Prediction Center.
Just as utilities can prepare for a severe thunderstorm by staging repair workers nearby, similar precautions could be taken ahead of a solar storm, according to Mark Olson, the reliability assessment manager for the North America Electric Reliability Corp., a non-profit answerable to the U.S. and Canadian governments.
“You have the potential for very large areas to have voltage instability,” Olson said. “Situational awareness is the key here, just like in terrestrial weather events.”
Solar storms have their roots in an 11-year cycle that shifts the polarity of the Sun’s magnetic field. The magnetic forces at work on the sun get tangled during the process, and can punch out through the surface, sending the sun’s plasma into outer space and potentially triggering storms on Earth.
The most powerful geomagnetic storm ever recorded resulted in the 1859 Carrington Event, when telegraph lines electrified, zapping operators and setting offices ablaze in North America and Europe. If a storm of that magnitude were to hit today, it would likely cut power to millions if not billions of people.
“When I first started on this road and was briefed on space weather I raised an eyebrow,” said Prouse. “It is much more mainstream and some of the mystification is gone. You can now raise it as a risk and not get laughed at.”
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>>> Quantum Teleportation Was Just Achieved With 90% Accuracy Over a 44km Distance
Science Alert
by David Nield
Jan 1, 2021
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/quantum-teleportation-was-just-achieved-with-90percent-accuracy-over-a-44km-distance/ar-BB1cnZbN?ocid=uxbndlbing
Quantum Teleportation Was Just Achieved With 90% Accuracy Over a 44km Distance
Scientists are edging closer to making a super-secure, super-fast quantum internet possible: they've now been able to 'teleport' high-fidelity quantum information over a total distance of 44 kilometres (27 miles).
Both data fidelity and transfer distance are crucial when it comes to building a real, working quantum internet, and making progress in either of these areas is cause for celebration for those building our next-generation communications network.
In this case the team achieved a greater than 90 percent fidelity (data accuracy) level with its quantum information, as well as sending it across extensive fibre optic networks similar to those that form the backbone of our existing internet.
"We're thrilled by these results," says physicist Panagiotis Spentzouris, from the Fermilab particle physics and accelerator laboratory based at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech).
"This is a key achievement on the way to building a technology that will redefine how we conduct global communication."
Quantum internet technology uses qubits; unmeasured particles that remain suspended in a mix of possible states like spinning dice yet to settle.
Qubits that are introduced to one another have their identities 'entangled' in ways that become obvious once they're finally measured. Imagine these entangled qubits as a pair of dice - while each can land on any number, they are both guaranteed to add to seven no matter how far apart they are. Data in one location instantly reflects data in another.
By clever arrangement of entangling three qubits, it's possible to force the state of one particle to adopt the 'dice roll' of another via their mutually entangled partner. In quantum land, this is as good as turning one particle into another, teleporting its identity across a distance in a blink.
The entanglement still needs to be established in the beginning though, and then maintained as the qubits are sent to their eventual destination through optical fibres (or satellites).
The unstable, delicate nature of quantum information makes it tricky to beam entangled photons over long distances without interference, however. Longer optical fibres simply mean more opportunity for noise to interfere with the entangled states.
In total, the lengths of fibre used to channel each cubit added to 44 kilometres, setting a new limit to how far we can send entangled qubits and still successfully use them to teleport quantum information.
It's never before been demonstrated to work over such a long distance with such accuracy, and it brings a city-sized quantum network closer to reality – even though there are still years of work ahead to make that possible.
"With this demonstration we're beginning to lay the foundation for the construction of a Chicago-area metropolitan quantum network," says Spentzouris.
Quantum entanglement and data teleportation is a complex science, and not even the experts fully understand how it might ultimately be used in a quantum network. Each proof of concept like this that we get puts us a little closer to making such a network happen though.
As well as promising huge boosts in speed and computational power, a quantum internet would be ultra-secure – any hacking attempt would be as good as destroying the lock being picked. For now at least, scientists think quantum internet networks will act as specialist extensions to the classical internet, rather than a complete replacement.
Researchers are tackling quantum internet problems from all different angles, which is why you'll see a variety of distances mentioned in studies – they're not all measuring the same technology, using the same equipment, to test the same standards.
What makes this study special is the accuracy and the distance of the quantum entanglement teleportation, as well as the 'off the shelf' equipment used – it should theoretically be relatively easy to scale up this technology using the hardware we're already got in place.
"We are very proud to have achieved this milestone on sustainable, high-performing and scalable quantum teleportation systems," says physicist Maria Spiropulu, from Caltech.
"The results will be further improved with system upgrades we are expecting to complete by the second quarter of 2021."
The research has been published in PRX Quantum.
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>>> Elusive Metal-Eating Bacteria Predicted Over a Century Ago Discovered in Lab Accident
Nature
by TESSA KOUMOUNDOUROS
JULY 2020
https://www.sciencealert.com/bacteria-that-eat-the-metal-manganese-was-found-by-accident-in-a-lab
When microbiologist Jared Leadbeater returned to his office for the first time in months after a work trip, he found something strange. A cream-coloured manganese carbonate (MnCO3) compound, coating glassware he'd left soaking in his sink, had turned dark. Something had stolen some of its electrons.
"I thought, 'What is that?'" said Leadbeater, a researcher at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). The dark substance was a form of manganese oxide - a product that forms when manganese ions lose electrons and undergo a reaction called oxidation.
But something had to be initiating the reaction - an electron thief.
"I started to wonder if long-sought-after microbes might be responsible," Leadbeater explained, "so we systematically performed tests to figure that out."
To check if this was really happening due to a biological process, Leadbeater and his team coated more jars with MnCO3 and sterilised some them using scorching steam (MnCO3 is known to be stable in these conditions).
The manganese compound on those didn't darken (even a year later), but the flasks that hadn't been sterilised did. Therefore, the electron thief had to be something that could be destroyed by hot steam.
So, the researchers cultured what was on the jars. RNA analysis revealed 70 species of bacteria, but with further tests the team managed to rule some out, until just two possible culprits remained.
They were Nitrospirae bacteria which is usually crescent-shaped, and the rod-shaped betaproteobacterium. Relatives of both these bacteria species are known to live in groundwater.
"We isolated [the betaproteobacterium] from disrupted oxides as single colonies... but this species does not oxidise MnCO3 alone. Either the Nitropirae is solely responsible for Mn(II) oxidation or the activity is consortial," the team writes in a new study.
The electron theft may have been a team effort, the team realised. But what was the motive? The researchers had their suspicions.
They used manganese labelled with carbon 13 in some of their cultures and, sure enough, the bacteria incorporated these carbon isotopes into their bodies.
This confirmed the suspect bacteria were autotrophic - are able to produce their own food using a source of energy.
The bacteria were using the energy from the manganese electrons to change CO2 into usable carbon, like plants use sunlight to turn CO2 and water into sugars and oxygen during photosynthesis.
This process is called chemosynthesis, and while known to occur using other metals, it's the first time we've seen cells make use of manganese in this way.
"These are the first bacteria found to use manganese as their source of fuel," explained Leadbetter, although such microbes were predicted to exist over a century ago.
Manganese is an essential nutrient for us as well. Our bodies use it for things like processing fats and proteins and bone formation, and we get it from foods such as nuts and teas and leafy greens.
While it's one of the most common elements on our planet's surface, a lot about manganese and its cycle on Earth remains a mystery - including its strange tendency to clog water pipes.
"There is a whole set of environmental engineering literature on drinking-water-distribution systems getting clogged by manganese oxides," said Leadbetter.
"But how and for what reason such material is generated there has remained an enigma. Clearly, many scientists have considered that bacteria using manganese for energy might be responsible, but evidence supporting this idea was not available until now."
Manganese oxide also mysteriously appears as nodules across much of the seafloor, and manganese is involved in many interconnected cycles of elements including carbon, nitrogen, iron, and oxygen.
So, the existence of manganese electron-stealing thieves, like these newly discovered bacteria, could explain a lot.
The researchers say the bacteria's cell doubling times and rates of oxidation would create manganese oxides in amounts equivalent to global reserves in just two years.
Close relatives of these species seem to be present in many places, so their potential to cycle this metal across Earth could be vast.
"This discovery fills a major intellectual gap in our understanding of Earth's elemental cycles, and adds to the diverse ways in which manganese, an abstruse but common transition metal, has shaped the evolution of life on our planet," said Caltech geobiologist Woodward Fischer, who was not involved with the study.
This research was published in Nature.
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