Happy Holidays

Happy Holidays from BRT

Where Video is Going

Disruptive, disruptive to the max to Hollywood without question.
Click here for Part 1.

Layer by Layer

BRT has talked about 3D stereo lithography numerous times as this tech, will, in time, change how man makes things, especially when the technique employs sophisticated methodologies similar to what GE is using to build jet engines.

To do it, a laser traces out the shape of the injector's cross-section on a bed of cobalt-chrome powder, fusing the powder into solid form to build up the injector one ultrathin layer at a time. This promises to be less expensive than traditional manufacturing methods, and it should lead to a lighter part—which is to say a better one. The first parts will go into jet engines, says Prabhjot Singh, who runs a lab at GE that focuses on improving and applying this and similar 3-D printing processes. But, he adds, "there's not a day we don't hear from one of the other divisions at GE interested in using this technology."


These innovations are at the forefront of a radical change in manufacturing technology that is especially appealing in advanced applications like aerospace and cars. The 3-D printing techniques won't just make it more efficient to produce existing parts. They will also make it possible to produce things that weren't even conceivable before—like parts with complex, scooped-out shapes that minimize weight without sacrificing strength. Unlike machining processes, which can leave up to 90 percent of the material on the floor, 3-D printing leaves virtually no waste—a huge consideration with expensive metals such as titanium. The technology could also reduce the need to store parts in inventory, because it's just as easy to print another part—or an improved version of it—10 years after the first one was made. An automobile manufacturer receiving reports of a failure in a seat belt mechanism could have a reconfigured version on its way to dealers within days.

With a bit of luck, society can survive in this age of peak oil but only if transparency is forced upon governance, corporate and finance before it's too late.

Nature Finds a Way

Seems our bodies produces graphite, the precursor to Graphene, as needs warrant.

Earlier research by team members Alfons Fischer at the University of Duisburg-Essen and Markus Wimmer at Rush University Medical Center discovered that a lubricating layer forms on metallic joints as a result of friction. Once formed, the layer reduces friction as well as wear and corrosion. This layer is called a tribological layer and is where the sliding takes place, much like how an ice skate slides not on the ice but on a thin layer of water.


But, until now, researchers did not know what the layer was. (It forms on the surfaces of both the ball and the socket.) It had been assumed that the layer was made of proteins or something similar in the body that got into the joint and adhered to the implant's surfaces.


The interdisciplinary team studied seven implants that were retrieved from patients for a variety of reasons. The researchers used a number of analytical tools, including electron and optical microscopies, to study the tribological layer that formed on the metal parts. (An electron microscope uses electrons instead of light to image materials.)


The electron-energy loss spectra, a method of examining how the atoms are bonded, showed a well-known fingerprint of graphitic carbon. This, together with other evidence, led the researchers to conclude that the layer actually consists primarily of graphitic carbon, a well-established solid lubricant, not the proteins of natural joints.

Nature finds a way.

The Sound of One Hand Clapping

Like a hell-broth boil and bubble - Macbeth

For 30,000 years, the permafrost has remained quiescent, holding onto carbon dioxide and methane, it's O2 starved cousin, at bay, keeping runaway global warming from happening until we came along to upset the apple cart. 

A recent estimate suggests that the perennially frozen ground known as permafrost, which underlies nearly a quarter of the Northern Hemisphere, contains twice as much carbon as the entire atmosphere.


Temperatures are warming across much of that region, primarily, scientists believe, because of the rapid human release of greenhouse gases. Permafrost is warming, too. Some has already thawed, and other signs are emerging that the frozen carbon may be becoming unstable.

but that's not all.

When organic material comes out of the deep freeze, it is consumed by bacteria. If the material is well-aerated, bacteria that breathe oxygen will perform the breakdown, and the carbon will enter the air as carbon dioxide, the primary greenhouse gas. But in areas where oxygen is limited, like the bottom of a lake or wetland, a group of bacteria called methanogens will break down the organic material, and the carbon will emerge as methane.


Scientists are worried about both gases. They believe that most of the carbon will emerge as carbon dioxide, with only a few percent of it being converted to methane. But because methane is such a potent greenhouse gas, the 41 experts in the recent survey predicted that it would trap about as much heat as the carbon dioxide would.

In indirect fashion, the slow motion push of global warming will bring tragedy to those who cannot deal with it just as the fatal attraction to power brings tragedy to Macbeth, a supremely gifted man unable to escape the clutches of unbridled ambition.

1 WITCH.  Thrice the brinded cat hath mew'd. 
       2 WITCH.  Thrice and once, the hedge-pig whin'd. 
       3 WITCH.  Harpier cries:—'tis time! 'tis time! 
       1 WITCH.  Round about the caldron go; 
    In the poison'd entrails throw.— 
    Toad, that under cold stone, 
    Days and nights has thirty-one; 
    Swelter'd venom sleeping got, 
    Boil thou first i' the charmed pot! 
       ALL.  Double, double toil and trouble; 
    Fire burn, and caldron bubble. 
       2 WITCH.  Fillet of a fenny snake, 
    In the caldron boil and bake; 
    Eye of newt, and toe of frog, 
    Wool of bat, and tongue of dog, 
    Adder's fork, and blind-worm's sting, 
    Lizard's leg, and owlet's wing,— 
    For a charm of powerful trouble, 
    Like a hell-broth boil and bubble. 
       ALL.  Double, double toil and trouble; 
    Fire burn, and caldron bubble. 

Transformation 2 Step

About 2 1/2 years ago, BRT did a post titled Economics 101 or Show Me the Money, a blurb dedicated to showing how many boxcars would 15 billion dollars take up and how much would it weigh as said money was lost by various governmental players during the misadventure known as Iraq. 

A standard box car is 50' long, 10' wide and 12.5' high. The volume of same totals approximately 6250 cubic feet (50'X10'X12.5'). Weight capacity, approximately 70 tons.

Using these dimensions, 4656 $100 bills would cover the floor of said box car (48 X 97 = 4656). A 1" layer (or one ream) would amount to 2,328,000 bills (4656 X 500 = 2,328,000) or be worth $23,280,000 (2,328,000 X $100). Filling one box car up would generate a cool $3,492,000,000 ($23,280,000 X 149 [12,5' = 150"- 1" {the ream already computed} or 149]).

or... $15,000,000,000 divided by $3,492,000,000 = 4.295 box cars filled with $100s. 

The weight of each note is one gram. There are 454 grams in one U.S. pound, therefore, there should be 454 notes in (1) pound. Ergo: 150,000,000 bills divided by 454 (1 pound of $100s) = 330,396 pounds or 165 tons (30396/2000 = 165) .

Now, let's do the math for 29 trillion dollars, the amount the Fed gave to banks and
foreign entities beginning in 2008.

1. $15 billion x 1.94 = $29 billion
2. 4.295 box cars x 1.94 = 8.332 box cars filled with $100s = the aforementioned $29 billion
3. 165 tons x 1.94 = 320 tons = Weight of the $29 billion
4. To get the totals for $29 trillion, simply multiply 8.332 and 320 by 1000 or...
5. 8.332 box cars x 1000 =  8,332, box cars filled with $100s = $29 trillion
6. 320 tons x 1000 = 320,000 tons = Weight of the $29 trillion

Of course, this is just a mental exercise as the actual possibility of having 29 trillion dollars in hand is but a figment of one's imagination, and besides, it's far easier to transform dollars into bits, entities able to be manipulated, moved and created at a moment's notice courtesy of tech, fractional reserve banking and the magical ability to turn IOUs into assets in feeding the multitudes of '"destitute" bankers and foreign interests who, as we know all too well, are too big to fail, don't you think?

Adding Fuel to the Fire

"Here’s the hurricane: In reality, no less than $29.616 trillion is the total emergency assistance provided by the Fed to foreign and domestic entities during the Global Financial Crisis. Let’s repeat that: $29 trillion. This astounding number is over twice U.S. gross domestic product, the nominal value of all goods and services produced for the year 2010.  This is the total of the bailout as calculated by Nicola Matthews and myself as part of the Ford Foundation project, A Research And Policy Dialogue Project On Improving Governance Of The Government Safety Net In Financial Crisis.  We will be presenting the results of our analysis in a series of papers published by the Levy Economics Institute, the first of which, “29,000,000,000,000: A Detailed Look at the Fed’s Bailout by Funding Facility and Recipient,” is already available here. "

2012 anyone? - Maybe the Mayans were right after all in terms of how violent 2012 could become thanks to the collusion of government with the Fed and the WS banks (along with significant others) in allowing the 1% to get away with the biggest financial theft in this country's history.

If we can finally be truthful with ourselves as a nation, then we must admit that our financial system is fundamentally based on lies, fraud, embezzlement, misinformation, perverse filters and incentives, shadow systems that mock transparency and regulation, class privilege and the systemic flouting of the rule of law.


This is the truth that hurts because it reveals the financial system as one stupendous exploitative fraud; but it also reveals the complicity and irrelevance of our judicial system and the complete capture of the legislative and Executive processes of governance.


There is a system of government in which rule of law is merely a propaganda screen, where financial and political Elites run the show and escape the consequences of their actions: it's called tyranny. The truth is that we live in a financial tyranny.

We can change this if we really want to but the changes we must make will be fought tooth and nail by the powers at be who intend to keep the status quo intact at all costs. One can only hope the change we desperately need can be done peacefully because if not, the US may not survive as a viable nation as we move further into a most uncertain future.

Morpheus: The Matrix is a system, Neo. That system is our enemy. But when you're inside, you look around, what do you see? Businessmen, teachers, lawyers, carpenters. The very minds of the people we are trying to save. But until we do, these people are still a part of that system and that makes them our enemy. You have to understand, most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inert, so hopelessly dependent on the system, that they will fight to protect it.


[Neo's eyes suddenly wander towards a woman in a red dress.]


Morpheus: If you are not one of us, you are one of them.

In Direct Contrast

In direct contrast to Immersive to the 9s, a piece showing just how creative and innovative people can be regarding art, science and technology comes a piece showing just how venal and shortsighted people can be when it comes to finance and the art of crony capitalism as practiced by the corrupt minions at the Fed.

Capitalism's primary characteristic is that capital is put at risk for a gain/loss. If risk is off-loaded onto the Fed's bottomless balance sheet and the taxpayer via government-funded bailouts and guarantees, then capital is not actually at risk. Thus what we have isn't capitalism, but cartel crony-capitalism, a phony version of the real thing which guarantees private banking profits and socializes banking losses.


The Fed was recently revealed as having arranged billions in private gain via secretly backstopping the banks with $7.7 trillion. This highlights Bernanke and his buds' second catastrophically wrong policy, that of systemic opacity.


The acme of open markets is transparency. Without transparency, markets are not free or open, they are manipulated-- both to hide those who are benefitting from the destruction of transparency (monopolies, cartels, fiefdoms, kleptocracies, oligarchies, etc.) and to manipulate the market as part of a permanent propaganda campaign to "manage perceptions:" the market's up, everything's dandy.


Bernanke and his faithful banking-sector lackeys have destroyed transparency at every turn, refusing an audit (an audit smacks of--sniff--democracy--how distasteful), masking the $7.7 trillion in backstopping, and hiding the toxicity of the Fed balance sheet, which is loaded with over $1 trillion in distressed mortgage securities that the Fed lovingly took off the bankrupt balance sheets of its craven masters, the banks.


In other words, the Fed has massively rewarded the reckless and rescued the incompetent from the consequences of their actions. If that isn't the perfection of wrongheadedness, what is?

Transparency is key for without it, all things related to finance fail, a concept so eloquently voiced in the Charles Hugh Smith piece seen above and in  Transparency, Daniel Roth's nuanced argument articulating why less regulation is needed, not more, when transparency, combined with xbrl, is factored into the equation. In this writer's opinion, transparency should be a given in all aspects of governance, science and business as well because without it, things have a way of blowing up, as seen by the devastating impact the criminal activities of the Fed and Wall Street banks have had on the world at large.

Immersive to the 9s

About three years ago, BRT posted a blurb about wall size screens, paper thin with gorgeous color and high resolution. Of course the post talked about OLEDs and not quantum dots as Qdots were still a mostly imagined tech with unlimited upside but was considered to be  extremely hard to manufacture, until now. With this in mind, it seems BRT was wrong about the tach (but not the displays) as quantum dots will be the flexible, paper thin darling of flat screens of every size imaginable and not OLEDs if Nanoco & significant others have anything to say about it.

The quantum dots will be in use for ultra thin, light flat screen TVs by the end of next year, and, in another three years, will be used in flexible screens rolled up like paper or used as wall coverings.


The company, Nanoco Group, is reportedly working with Asian electronics companies to bring this technology to market.

The tech envisioned looks like this.

To get in-depth info about this elegant approach to innovative displays, click on the image below.

Necessity as the Mother of Invention

Necessity is the mother of invention. When desperate, innovation often issues forth as seen in the Wired article Fecal Transplants: They Work, the Regulations Don’t

to whit.

For months, physicians kept trying different drug regimens, while Thompson’s hair fell out and her muscles wasted. By summer, she was down 40 pounds and close to desperate. Scouring the internet for alternatives, she found a description of a treatment that didn’t use drugs. It was a fecal transplant, which is just what it sounds like: inserting strained, diluted feces harvested from someone with a healthy gut into the sick person’s large intestine, in hopes of replacing the devastated colony of bacteria living there with a fresh, robust one.


In two hours, she started feeling better. In three years, her C. diff has never recurred.

but, as per the the status quo,

… Fecal transplants remain a niche therapy, practiced only by gastroenterologists who work for broad-minded institutions and who have overcome the ick factor. To become widely accepted, recommended by professional societies and reimbursed by insurers, the transplants will need to be rigorously studied in a randomized clinical trial, in which people taking a treatment are assessed alongside people who are not.

From the perspective of yours truly, it's follow the money as dung cannot be monetized, something big pharma realizes when seen in Merck's marketing of  Proscar vs Saw Palmetto in treating an enlarged prostate as Proscar costs three times as much and has more side effects then Saw Palmetto. Because we have a for profit medical system, solutions that are cheap, like fecal transplants, are often marginalized but there's hope, with a touch of irony.


So, to be clear, what we have is a treatment that is minimally invasive, reliable, cheap, and with a long clinical history: The earliest documented use in humans goes back to 1958, and it has a longer and still current use in veterinary medicine, especially in racehorses. Also, it works, in more than 9 out of 10 patients. Kelly told me: “There is no drug, for anything” with a cure rate routinely that high.

Being a horse has it's advantages, don't you think?

Learning Curve

The Matrix, a 1999 masterpiece, covers much ground regarding AI, simulated reality and the brutal displacement of man as the dominant species on planet earth, a fact artfully concealed by a computer generated dream world so real as to be accepted as the one true reality as long as you don't take the red pill.

But this blurb, as per BRT custom, is not about simulated reality and malevolent AI but rather about instant learning, the ability for people to master complex skills instantly (like Neo) by downloading content into the mind ready to be used as needs warrant. At the time of the flick, this notion was conjecture at best but it won't be for long if researchers are right about being able to modify thought patters to enable one to learn new disciplines beyond the limits of real time...

In the future, a person may be able to watch a computer screen and have his or her brain patterns modified to improve physical or mental performance. Researchers say an innovative learning method that uses decoded functional magnetic resonance imaging could modify brain activities to help people recuperate from an accident or disease, learn a new language or even fly a plane. Credit: Nicolle Rager Fuller, National Science Foundation

(Medical Xpress) -- New research published today in the journal Science suggests it may be possible to use brain technology to learn to play a piano, reduce mental stress or hit a curve ball with little or no conscious effort. It's the kind of thing seen in Hollywood's "Matrix" franchise.

Disruptive to the max if you ask me.

10 Million Tons...& Counting

Houston, we have a problem.

"Global carbon emissions reach record 10 billion tons -- threatening 2 degree target


Published today in the journal Nature Climate Change, the new analysis by the Global Carbon Project shows fossil fuel emissions increased by 5.9 per cent in 2010 and by 49 per cent since 1990 – the reference year for the Kyoto protocol."

The picture below kind of says it all, don't you think?

 Any questions?

Being an Aspie

I'm coming out of the closet. I have Aspergers, a mild form of Autism, a condition that makes communication with others a difficulty because of how our brains are wired.  For years, it was considered a handicap with no upside, something that made life miserable growing up until research showed me how to communicate more effectively with others. Interestingly enough, the attitude toward Aspergers is changing as many creatives and innovators of the world including Einstein, Newton and Edison were believed to have had Aspergers, a fact which makes yours truly feel more sanguine about  possessing this particular condition.

Click here to see some of the notable who are aspies. Players to the max if you ask me. :)

Had to include Glen Gould playing the Goldberg. Without a doubt, IMHO, Gould was the greatest interpreter of Bach's keyboard compositions. Enjoy.

Bailouts Explained

No News is Good News...

The covers of the US edition of this week's Time Magazine compared to the international editions.

We can't make this stuff up. It kind of says it all...

The Maladies of Job

I've always had a desire to get a bulldog. One that looks like the lovable bruiser seen above as every time I have encountered one, affection, goofiness and looks designed to kill have enchanted me for years save that the wife would kill me if I got one. With that in mind, reading the sobering NY Times Can the Bulldog Be Saved? has saddened yours truly when pure bred obsession takes the bulldog's gene  pool for a ride in creating a dog cursed with the maladies of Job.

“There is little doubt that the anatomy of the English bulldog has considerable capacity to cause suffering,” Dr. Nicola Rooney and Dr. David Sargan concluded in one of the reports, “Pedigree Dog Breeding in the U.K.: A Major Welfare Concern?” “The breed is noted to have locomotion difficulties, breathing problems, an inability to mate or give birth without assistance. . . . Many would question whether the breed’s quality of life is so compromised that its breeding should be banned.”

It gets better...

Though a number of breeds were discussed at the conference (including the Cavalier King Charles spaniel, which is beset with severe heart and neurological diseases), the bulldog stole the show. “It is the most extreme example of genetic manipulation in the dog-breeding world that results in congenital and hereditary problems,” Pacelle said.

Brenda Bonnett, a consulting veterinary epidemiologist and a speaker at the conference, outlined the results of her study of Swedish dog-insurance data from 1995 to 2006. She told conference attendees that bulldogs are significantly more likely than other dogs to suffer from a wide range of health issues, including ear and eye problems, skin infections, respiratory issues, immunological and neurological problems and locomotor challenges. (Statistics released in 2010 by the Orthopedic Foundation for Animals revealed that bulldogs have the highest rate of hip dysplasia of any breed.)

A few months after the Humane Society conference, The Journal of Veterinary Internal Medicine published a study of breed-related causes of death in American dogs. Researchers found that bulldogs are the most likely to die from respiratory illness and the second-most likely to die from congenital disease.

The most telling item however is the mutation of the breed from bull baiting monster to lovable pug as seen in a comparison of what the bulldog used to look like compared to today's.

Circa 1800's

Present Day

Any Questions?

Reducto ad Absurdum

"A gene is a molecular unit of heredity of a living organism. It is a name given to some stretches of DNA and RNA that code for a type of protein or for an RNA chain that has a function in the organism. Living beings depend on genes, as they specify all proteins and functional RNA chains. Genes hold the information to build and maintain an organism's cells and pass genetic traits to offspring, although some organelles (e.g. mitochondria) are self-replicating and are not coded for by the organism's DNA. All organisms have many genes corresponding to various biological traits, some of which are immediately visible, such as eye color or number of limbs, and some of which are not, such as blood type or increased risk for specific diseases, or the thousands of basic biochemical processes that comprise life."

Question: Did any medical company create the gene given the definition seen above or better yet, can something every living thing on this plant possesses be patented? In a sane world, the answer would be a rather obvious no but in today's corporate-controlled world, 40,000 genes have been patented with more to come thanks to a patent office either blindingly stupid, incredibly inept or bought and paid for by parties unknown.

"Think your body is your own to control and dispose of as you wish? Think again. The United States Patent Office has granted at least 40,000 patents on genes controlling the most basic processes of human life, and more are pending. If you undergo surgery in many hospitals you must sign away ownership rights to your excised tissues, even if they turn out to have medical and fiscal value. Life itself is rapidly becoming a wholly owned subsidiary of the medical- industrial complex." 

When factored in with the for profit healthcare system the US is saddled with, it's no wonder the leaving of common sense regarding genes and patents has become a no brainer to the max. 

Soylent Green anyone?

Captain Obvious

Smart Planet seems to come up with some pretty interesting tidbits regarding tech, energy and business including this gem titled... The 25 worst passwords of 2011.

They are:

1. password
2. 123456
3.12345678
4. qwerty
5. abc123
6. monkey
7. 1234567
8. letmein
9. trustno1
10. dragon
11. baseball
12. 111111
13. iloveyou
14. master
15. sunshine
16. ashley
17. bailey
18. passw0rd
19. shadow
20. 123123
21. 654321
22. superman
23. qazwsx
24. michael
25. football


SmartPlanet colleague Tuan C. Nguyen provides a surprisingly simple technique for deriving a strong password that makes it difficult for hacking programs to arrive at the right brute force combination — employing a symbol in combination with an upper-case and lower-case letter.

I use this technique but still forget the damn things when logging onto sites like SP. :)

Happy T Day

Earth-Time

Words not needed here.

Something to Consider

The end-Permian extinction occurred 252.2 million years ago, decimating 90 percent of marine and terrestrial species, from snails and small crustaceans to early forms of lizards and amphibians. “The Great Dying,” as it’s now known, was the most severe mass extinction in Earth’s history, and is probably the closest life has come to being completely extinguished. Possible causes include immense volcanic eruptions, rapid depletion of oxygen in the oceans, and — an unlikely option — an asteroid collision.


While the causes of this global catastrophe are unknown, an MIT-led team of researchers has now established that the end-Permian extinction was extremely rapid, triggering massive die-outs both in the oceans and on land in less than 20,000 years — the blink of an eye in geologic time. The researchers also found that this time period coincides with a massive buildup of atmospheric carbon dioxide, which likely triggered the simultaneous collapse of species in the oceans and on land.

But there's more...


“The rate of injection of CO2 into the late Permian system is probably similar to the anthropogenic rate of injection of CO2 now,” Rothman says. “It’s just that it went on for … 10,000 years.”


Rothman says the total amount of CO2 pumped into Earth over this time period was so immense that it’s not immediately clear where it all came from.


“It’s just not easy to imagine,” Rothman says. “Even if you put all the world’s known coal deposits on top of a volcano, you still wouldn’t come close. So something unusual was going on.”

Phase changes are non-linear, the break from one phase or condition to another (water/ice/steam) is dramatic and powerful, something to consider as we continue to move toward a possible phase transition equal to that of  "The Great Dying", something we can avoid if we have the will to do it.

Blade Runner - On Nearing 30

Produced almost 30 years ago, Blade Runner, a dark and mysterious film depicting a dystopian future, continues to haunt us by asking deep questions about humanity, death, the environment and ethics, questions becoming all the more relevant as time goes by...

• How long have I got?
• What does it mean to be human anyway?
• Do we have the right to terminate artificial life much less create it?
• Do we have the right to survive given what we have done to the environment?
• Are we better off with all this tech?
• Can civilization survive in spite of itself?

Questions to ponder, don't you think?

"It's too bad she won't live! But then again, who does? " - Gaff/Blade Runner

In the Realm of the Possible

Seems a new ecosystem is beginning to happen with the latest entry dealing with batteries, a topic BRT has covered in the past with emphasis on the difficulty of producing cheap, powerful batteris able to be charged ad nauseum and able to be recycled without issue, something considered to be extremely hard to do until now.

"Capacitors store an electrical charge physically and have important advantages: they are lightweight and can be recharged (and discharged) rapidly and almost indefinitely. Plus, they generate very little heat, an important issue for electronic devices. However, they can only make use of about half of their stored charge.


Batteries, on the other hand, store electrical energy chemically and can release it over longer periods at a steady voltage. And they can usually store more energy than a capacitor. But batteries are heavy and take time to charge up, and even the best can’t be recharged forever.


Enter asymmetric capacitors, which bring together the best of both worlds. On the capacitor side, energy is stored by electrolyte ions that are physically attracted to the charged surface of a carbon anode. Combined with a battery-style cathode, this design delivers nearly double the energy of a standard capacitor."

But there's more...

"But how many times can you recharge their novel asymmetric capacitor? Nobody knows; so far, they haven’t been able to wear it out. “We’ve achieved over 127,000 cycles,” Rogers said."

When looking at this innovative way to developing an elegant portable power source, one sees a distributed approach to building a sustainable future beginning to blossom thanks to the net and the commonality of file formats enabling researchers and technologists to share information in ways considered to be impossible to do just one year ago. A partial list of disciplines used in creating products similar in concept to the battery project described above includes quantum theory, AI, robotics, biotech, nano-tech and computation.

A tiny sampling of tech using input from these and other disciplines not listed include:

• 3D fabbing
• Thin film solar
• Artificial photosynthesis
• Using light to treat cancer
• Using heat with gold nanoparticles to treat cancer
• Flexible, transparent displays
• Spintronics
• Graphene capaciters
• Graphene batteries
• Smart Dust
• Quantum computers
• Bots
• Smart phones
• Pad computers
• Smart prosthetics
• Electric cars
• etc., etc., etc.,

"If an elderly but distinguished scientist says that something is possible, he is almost certainly right; but if he says that it is impossible, he is very probably wrong." - Arthur C. Clarke

On the Road...circa 2011

"It took two months traveling through 32 states for photographer Brian DeFrees to capture this five-minute time-lapse that documents his epic cross-country road trip."

Jack Kerouac would have been proud.

Sometimes a Great Notion

Truly great ideas are those so simple that one always tends to say "Why didn't I think of that." Well, LuminAID is one of these. To whit...

The LuminAID solar light proposes a new direction for solar technology. Flexible, photovoltaic film is laminated to polyethelenevinyl acetate plastic (PEVA). The LuminAID solar light inflates to produce a quality of light similar to a lantern. The LuminAID solar light provides 5 hours of light and fully charges in 6 hours. The inflatable core measures 9" L x 9" W. Printed on the core is a frit pattern that consists of white dots. The frit pattern diffuses the LED light.


The LuminAID solar light inflates to diffuse light like a lantern.

After seeing this, I contributed because the impact this tech will have on society will be great and besides, I go camping and having a rechargeable light source as elegant as this, it's a no brainer to be sure.

Gizmag has a nice piece about the company as well. Check it out, you won't be sorry.

Implications

Organic proteins reminds one of party favor curls raised to absurd limits where everything appears chaotic yet is anything but. The "party curl" seen above is the circadian protein, the controlling entity of internal biological clocks ranging from fruit fly and bacteria to humans and whales.

"Cornell researchers have identified for the first time the 3-D crystal structure of a protein in fruit flies (Drosophila) that also facilitates circadian rhythm functions in most higher organisms -- from cyanobacteria and plants to animals, including humans."

Now that said protein has been identified, profound implications based on this research may happen sooner rather then later as seen by the fact cancer cells use a different time frame when dividing from that of normal tissue, something difficult to readily identify without issue until now.

"The experiment discovered that one line of immortal cells have functioning biological clocks but their internal clocks have no effect on the rate at which they divide and grow. (Immortal cells have the same basic properties as cancer cells but are created in the laboratory where they are used for a wide variety of purposes.)...

Biologists have observed that cell division in normal cells in species ranging from unicellular organisms to humans peaks at specific times of the day and consider this as indirect evidence that the process is regulated by their internal biological clocks. Cells in the human mouth, for example, tend to divide in the evening, just before nightfall." 

The toolmaker never knows how his tools will be used. - Anonymous

Trap!t

The NY Times strikes again. This time it's Trap!t, a new search engine dedicated to finding articles keyed to subject matter, something yours truly will use when looking for nuggets of gold to inspire me to comment on and make connections to other topics that, in labrinthian ways, make sense when trying to ascertain the impact said tech or science may have on any given aspect of civilization.

Trapit is like a much-improved RSS feed that learns what you like so it can personalize search results. Pick a topic and Trapit will cull the Web sites of blogs, magazines and newspapers to show you both the most recent and most relevant results. Then, based on what you read and what you tell Trapit you like and dislike by clicking thumbs up or thumbs down, it will adjust your search results using machine learning. If you search for Thanksgiving recipes but only click on those for vegan dishes, you will stop seeing turkey recipes, for instance.

Seen below is a trap!t for science, tech and society. Pretty cool way results are displayed I must say.

Disruptive - To the Max

I love disruptive tech, you know, the kind able to shake things up in ways impossible to predict, especially to the established powers at be in any given industry. Seems 3D printing, a technology BRT has talked about often, will do the same for copyright, the bane of all things digital when raised to the absurd limits it now resides at in the US courtesy of the late unlamented Sonny Bono, who died while allegedly playing football on skis.

It appears copyright does not readily apply to "useful" things like objects able to be copied via 3D printing, the tech that will change everything relative to manufacturing as we move toward a contracting economy where all things local applies.

A recent research paper published by the Institute for the Future in Palo Alto, Calif., titled “The Future of Open Fabrication,” says 3-D printing will be “manufacturing’s Big Bang.” as jobs in manufacturing, many overseas, and jobs shipping products around the globe are replaced by companies setting up 3-D fabrication labs in stores to print objects rather than ship them.


The disregard for copyright smoothes the way for this shift. Downloading music online prospered because it was quicker and easier to press a button than go to a store to buy a CD. Given the choice to download a mug, or deal with Ikea on a Saturday afternoon, which one do you think you would choose?

Works for me.

The Great Equalizer

Death and the loss of power are the two great equalizers in America because both care not for money and status when one experiences one or the other during the short journey called life. In Redding, the October storm from hell dumped 12" of wet heavy stuff on us rubes, knocking out power, bringing down trees and canceling the myriad events every small town has regarding Halloween and all things relating to apple and pumpkin picking. Now that the storm has past (the town is still without power), one readily sees it matters not how big your house is or how large your bank account may be because without juice, the 17th century beckons with a vengeance.

In telling this tale of modest woe, the question to ask is, how did our ancestors fare without electricity and the benefits it brings to all of us. Food for thought, don't you think?

1318

"The work, to be published in PloS One, revealed a core of 1318 companies with interlocking ownerships (see image). Each of the 1318 had ties to two or more other companies, and on average they were connected to 20. What's more, although they represented 20 per cent of global operating revenues, the 1318 appeared to collectively own through their shares the majority of the world's large blue chip and manufacturing firms - the "real" economy - representing a further 60 per cent of global revenues."

As tech becomes more powerful, the ability to merge entities like these into one monstrous "company" controlling all the world's business operations, to enhance profits of course, becomes easier just as turning dollars into bits using the same tech enabled the five Wall Street Banks to bankrupt the world with consummate ease. With this in mind, thinking how The Company could operate in it's own behalf,  here's a possibility devoutly to be missed. :)

I'm in the Wrong Business

Just a short blurb on why I'm in the wrong business...

"But that’s the beauty of working at a major investment bank. Performance doesn’t matter nearly as much as just showing up. Goldman booked $13 billion in pre-tax profits in 2010—a steep drop from the $20 billion the bank booked in 2009. Despite a precipitous drop in profits between 2009 and 2010 and a stock stuck in neutral throughout the year, the Goldman board of directors raised Blankfein’s base salary to $2 million, up from $600,000, and showered an extra  $13 million in stock grants on Blankfein and his executive team.


Not bad for the executives of a bank forced to pay a $550 million fine after being accused by the SEC of duping its clients by selling them shares of a mortgage-backed security they allowed a hedge firm to secretly hand-pick. Still, this is hardly like the fat and happy subprime-mortgage days, when Goldman was buying toxic subprime mortgages and selling them to unsuspecting clients. In 2007, the year before the economic collapse, Blankfein made $68 million in stock and bonus money."

Dracula Could Only Wish

Without doubt, this terrific 1912 cartoon shows, in great detail, exactly how the Fed operates in manipulating our money even though this gem was drawn one year before the "great" Woodrow Wilson signed into law the Federal Reserve Act, (the updated version of the Aldrich Plan) thus creating the private non profit we all know and love as the Federal Reserve Bank, the "guardian" of the dwindling financial wealth of this once great nation.


In 1910, Senator Nelson Aldrich of Rhode Island was the political operative who colluded with the Wall Street bankers in secrecy at Jekyll Island to bring the vampire to life.

Full title An Act To provide for the establishment of Federal reserve banks, to furnish an elastic currency, to afford means of rediscounting commercial paper, to establish a more effective supervision of banking in the United States, and for other purposes.

To me, the words elastic currency, in addition to fractional reserve banking, have become the twin pillars of profit for the banks (prior to turning dollars into bits) as the notion of an elastic currency gives easy entry to creating inflation through creative use of the money supply, something so simple to achieve yet is kept so hidden from public scrutiny to the point that we, the great unwashed, accept inflation as something "beyond" our control even though, in reality, it is anything but.

Chapter I: Appearance and reality - Bertrand Russell

"IS there any knowledge in the world which is so certain that no reasonable man could doubt it? This question, which at first sight might not seem difficult, is really one of the most difficult that can be asked."

Remember, "the word assume means the ass of u and me" - Oscar Wilde 

Within 48 hours...

Seems morphology works somewhat akin to 3D stereolithographic printers in the sense embryos are built layer by layer governed by exquisite timed expression  of Hox genes to give proper shape to any organism whether it be a fruit fly or whale as size or type of animal, in this case, does not matter.

"Why don’t our arms grow from the middle of our bodies? The question isn’t as trivial as it appears. Vertebrae, limbs, ribs, tailbone ... in only two days, all these elements take their place in the embryo, in the right spot and with the precision of a Swiss watch. Intrigued by the extraordinary reliability of this mechanism, biologists have long wondered how it works. Now, researchers at EPFL (Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne) and the University of Geneva (Unige) have solved the mystery. Their discovery will be published October 13, 2011 in the journal Science. 


The embryo is built one layer at a time 
During the development of an embryo, everything happens at a specific moment. In about 48 hours, it will grow from the top to the bottom, one slice at a time – scientists call this the embryo’s segmentation. “We’re made up of thirty-odd horizontal slices,” explains Denis Duboule, a professor at EPFL and Unige. “These slices correspond more or less to the number of vertebrae we have.” 

"Stereolithography is an additive manufacturing process using a vat of liquid UV-curable photopolymer "resin" and a UV laser to build parts a layer at a time. On each layer, the laser beam traces a part cross-section pattern on the surface of the liquid resin. Exposure to the UV laser light cures, solidifies the pattern traced on the resin and adheres it to the layer below."

Kevin Kelly was right, the more powerful the tech, the more biological it becomes.