CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC) Broke Down Last Week -- An Investigation By AP Broke The Story For The Public To Know

Transformer Glitch Shuts Down Biggest Atom Smasher -- AP

GENEVA (AP) — The world's largest particle collider malfunctioned within hours of its launch to great fanfare, but its operator didn't report the problem for a week.

In a statement Thursday, the European Organization for Nuclear Research reported for the first time that a 30-ton transformer that cools part of the collider broke, forcing physicists to stop using the atom smasher just a day after starting it up last week.

The faulty transformer has been replaced and the ring in the 17-mile circular tunnel under the Swiss-French border has been cooled back down to near zero on the Kelvin scale — minus 459.67 degrees Fahrenheit — the most efficient operating temperature, said a statement by CERN, as the organization is known.

When the transformer malfunctioned, operating temperatures rose from below 2 Kelvin to 4.5 Kelvin — extraordinarily cold by most standards, but warmer than the normal operating temperature.

Read more ....

Excellent commentary from Greg Laden's Blog.

CERN: Damage To New Collider Forces 2-Month Halt

In this file photo dated May 31, 2007, part of the LHC (Large Hadron Collider) is seen in its tunnel at the CERN (European Center for Nuclear Research) near Geneva, Switzerland. The world's largest atom smasher, which was launched with great fanfare earlier this month, has been damaged worse than previously thought and will be out of commission for at least two months, its operators said Saturday, Sept. 20, 2008. (AP Photo/Keystone, Martial Trezzini, File)

From Yahoo News/AP:

GENEVA - The world's largest atom smasher — which was launched with great fanfare earlier this month — has been damaged worse than previously thought and will be out of commission for at least two months, its operators said Saturday.

Experts have gone into 17-mile (27-kilometer) circular tunnel housing the Large Hadron Collider under the Swiss-French border to examine the damage that halted operations about 36 hours after its Sept. 10 startup, said James Gillies, spokesman for CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research.

"It's too early to say precisely what happened, but it seems to be a faulty electrical connection between two magnets that stopped superconducting, melted and led to a mechanical failure and let the helium out," Gillies told The Associated Press.

Gillies said the sector that was damaged will have to be warmed up well above the absolute zero temperature used for operations so that repairs can be made — a time-consuming process.

Read more ....

More News On CERN

Atom-smasher out of action for two months: CERN -- AFP
CERN: Damage to new collider forces 2-month halt -- San Francisco Chronicle
Fault shuts Large Hadron Collider for two months -- The Guardian
Hadron Collider forced to halt -- BBC
CERN delays atom-smashing over magnet fault -- Times Online

Video - On Dancing Air: The Story of Wind Power

A very cool video from Live Science. The link is here.

Can 'Small Wind' Reap Big Rewards?

From CNN:

LONDON, England (CNN) -- Micro wind turbines are beginning to pop up all over our urban and rural landscapes. But is it worth investing your hard-earned cash in your very own wind machine? In short, it depends. Take a look at our quick guide to see if "small wind" could help you reduce your energy bills and your carbon footprint.

What is available?

There are plenty of small wind turbines on the market. Most are the more traditional horizontal axis -- which have two or three blades. But some are vertical-axis which look a bit like the beaters on a food mixer. Micro turbines can be as small as 100 to 500 watts and can be mounted on the side of a building. Larger models -- 2.5 kilowatts to 50 kilowatts -- need to be mast-mounted.

How much do they cost?

Prices vary a lot. One kilowatt models range from $1500 to $3000. More powerful models will cost considerably more. A six kilowatt machine will set you back $45,000 and 15 kilowatts a hefty $70,000. Prices generally include installation but other essential kit -- you will need a battery and an inverter if you are off grid --may not be included. With regular maintenance, turbines can last over 20 years.

Read more ....

Planet Is Running Out Of Clean Water, New Film Warns

From CNN:

(CNN) -- One sixth of the world's population does not have access to clean drinking water. More than 2 million people, most of them children, die each year from water-borne diseases.

Water-related problems aren't restricted to the developing world. A harmful pesticide, banned by many European countries, remains widely used in the United States, where it runs into rivers and streams.

And one expert estimates California's water supply will run out in 20 years.

These sobering statistics come from "FLOW," a new documentary film about the world's dwindling water supply. The filmmakers and their sources argue a combination of factors, including drought and skyrocketing demand, have created a looming global crisis that threatens the long-term survival of the human race.

After premiering in January at the Sundance Film Festival, "FLOW" opened September 12 in New York and Los Angeles, California, and expands to more cities this week. The New York Times called the documentary "less depressing than galvanizing, an informed and heartfelt examination of the tug of war between public health and private interests."

Read more ....

World Faces Global Pandemic Of Antibiotic Resistance, Experts Warn

All antibiotic use "uses up" some of the effectiveness of that antibiotic, diminishing the ability to use it in the future, experts warn, and antibiotics can no longer be considered as a renewable source. (Credit: iStockphoto/David Marchal)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Sep. 18, 2008) — Vital components of modern medicine such as major surgery, organ transplantation, and cancer chemotherapy will be threatened if antibiotic resistance is not tackled urgently, warn experts on bmj.com.

A concerted global response is needed to address rising rates of bacterial resistance caused by the use and abuse of antibiotics or "we will return to the pre-antibiotic era", write Professor Otto Cars and colleagues in an editorial.

All antibiotic use "uses up" some of the effectiveness of that antibiotic, diminishing the ability to use it in the future, write the authors, and antibiotics can no longer be considered as a renewable source.

They point out that existing antibiotics are losing their effect at an alarming pace, while the development of new antibiotics is declining. More than a dozen new classes of antibiotics were developed between 1930 and 1970, but only two new classes have been developed since then.

Read more ....

The 10 Worst U.S Natural Disasters

From Live Science:

Throughout modern history, the failure to prepare and cope with Mother Nature has resulted in catastrophic consequences, from wrecked economies to thousands of lives lost. Even as modern technology improves forecasts, Nature still gets the upper hand every now and then. Considering both human and economic costs, we present 10 of the worst all-time disasters to strike the United States. - Tuan C. Nguyen

Read more ....

Skeleton May Be Early TB Victim By LiveScience Staff

A close-up of a skeleton dating to A.D. 302 that archaeologists say bears evidence of TB. Credit: Sarah Mitchell/University of York

From Live Science:

The skeleton of a man discovered in a shallow grave on what is now a college campus in England could belong to one of Britain’s earliest victims of tuberculosis.

Radiocarbon dating suggests the man died in the fourth century, around A.D. 302, when Romans ruled the region. He was interred in a shallow scoop in a flexed position, on his right side.

The man, aged 26 to 35 years old, suffered from iron deficiency anemia during childhood and at 5-foot, 4-inches, was shorter than average for Roman males.

The first known case of TB in Britain is from the Iron Age (300 B.C.), but cases in the Roman period are fairly rare, and largely confined to the southern half of England. TB is most frequent from the 12th century A.D. in England when people were living in urban environments. So the skeleton may provide crucial evidence for the origin and development of the disease in this country.

Read more ....

So Much For Trends Towards Global Warming

Arctic Sea Ice Melt Season Officially Over; Ice Up Over 9% From Last Year -- Watts Up With That

We have news from the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC). They say: The melt is over. And we’ve added 9.4% ice coverage from this time last year. Though it appears NSIDC is attempting to downplay this in their web page announcement today, one can safely say that despite irrational predictions seen earlier this year, we didn’t reach an “ice free north pole” nor a new record low for sea ice extent.

Here is the current sea ice extent graph from NSIDC as of today, notice the upturn, which has been adding ice now for 5 days:



Here is what they have to say about it:

The Arctic sea ice cover appears to have reached its minimum extent for the year, the second-lowest extent recorded since the dawn of the satellite era. While above the record minimum set on September 16, 2007, this year further reinforces the strong negative trend in summertime ice extent observed over the past thirty years. With the minimum behind us, we will continue to analyze ice conditions as we head into the crucial period of the ice growth season during the months to come.

Despite overall cooler summer temperatures, the 2008 minimum extent is only 390,000 square kilometers (150,000 square miles), or 9.4%, more than the record-setting 2007 minimum. The 2008 minimum extent is 15.0% less than the next-lowest minimum extent set in 2005 and 33.1% less than the average minimum extent from 1979 to 2000.

Read more ....

Why Do We Believe Impossible Things?

From ABC News: Science & Technology

Why do so many people hold beliefs that are clearly false? A recent story on ABCNews.com said 80 million Americans believe we have been visited by aliens from another planet, and numerous studies show that millions of people believe in ghosts, extrasensory perception and, of course, alien abductions.

According to biologist Lewis Wolpert of University College, London, all those beliefs are clearly false, and they all share a common beginning. It may well have started when the first human realized he, or she, could make a fire by rubbing two sticks together.

Wolpert is the author of a new provocative book exploring the evolutionary origins of belief, called "Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast." The title comes from Lewis Carroll's classic "Through the Looking Glass," when Alice tells the White Queen that she cannot believe in impossible things.

Read more ....

Smithsonian To Put Its 137 Million-Object Collection Online

From CNN Science:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Smithsonian Institution will work to digitize its collections to make science, history and cultural artifacts accessible online and dramatically expand its outreach to schools, the museum complex's new chief said Monday.

"I worry about museums becoming less relevant to society," said Secretary G. Wayne Clough in his first interviews since taking the Smithsonian's helm in July.

Clough, 66, who was president of the Georgia Institute of Technology for 14 years, says he's working to bring in video gaming experts and Web gurus to collaborate with curators on creative ways to present artifacts online and make them appealing to kids.

"I think we need to take a major step," Clough said in an earlier interview. "Can we work with outside entities to create a place, for example, where we might demonstrate cutting-edge technologies to use to reach out to school systems all over the country? I think we can do that."

Read more ....

No Plant CO2 Relief In Warm World

From The BBC:

Plants are unlikely to soak up more carbon dioxide from the air as the planet warms, research suggests.

US scientists found that grassland took up less CO2 than usual for two years following temperatures that are now unusually hot, but may become common.

The conclusion parallels a real-world finding from Europe's 2003 heatwave, when the continent's plant life became a net producer, not absorber, of CO2.

The latest study is published in the scientific journal Nature.

Researchers extracted four intact segments of grassland, about 3 sq m in area and weighing about 12 tonnes each, from the prairies of Oklahoma, and placed them in special chambers at the Desert Research Institute (DRI) in Reno, Nevada.

Conditions in the chambers, such as temperature, moisture and sunlight, could be precisely controlled.

Read more ....

Doctors To Study 'Out Of Body' Experiences Of 1,500 Near-Death Heart Attack Patients

A team of doctors will study the 'out of body' experiences of 1,500 heart attack patients

From The Daily Mail:

A team of British and American hospital doctors will study the near-death experiences of 1,500 heart attack patients.

The research into 'out of body' experiences is due to take three years and is being coordinated by Southampton University.

Some people who have nearly died report being able to soar out of their bodies and look down on themselves and medical staff.

Doctors will place images on shelves that are only visible from the ceiling. They will see if the patients can recall the images and analyse their brain activity.

Dr Sam Parnia, an expert in the field of consciousness during clinical death who is heading the study, said: 'If you can demonstrate that consciousness continues after the brain switches off, it allows for the possibility that the consciousness is a separate entity.

'It is unlikely that we will find many cases where this happens, but we have to be open-minded.

'And if no one sees the pictures, it shows these experiences are illusions or false memories. This is a mystery that we can now subject to scientific study.'

Read more ....

Improving Our Ability To Peek Inside Molecules

Massively parallel holography at high resolutions. (a) A lithographic test sample imaged by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) next to a 30-nm-thick twin-prime 71x73 array with 44-nm square gold scattering elements. The scale bar is 2 mm. (b) The diffraction pattern collected at the ALS (1 x 106 photons in a five second exposure, 200 mm from the sample). (c) The real part of the reconstructed hologram. d) The simulation with 1 x 106 photons. The grey scale represents the real part of the hologram. (e) A simulation with the same number of photons, but a single reference pinhole. (f) Line through the two dots indicated in image (c). (Credit: Image courtesy of DOE/Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Sep. 18, 2008) — It's not easy to see a single molecule inside a living cell. Nevertheless, researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory are helping to develop a new technique that will enable them to create detailed high-resolution images, giving scientists an unprecedented look at the atomic structure of cellular molecules.

The LLNL team is collaborating with scientists across the country and in Germany and Sweden to utilize high-energy X-ray beams, combined with complex algorithms, to overcome difficulties in current technology.

The work began more than five years ago as a Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) project, headed by Stefano Marchesini. He has since transferred to Lawrence Berkeley Lab (LBNL), leaving the project in the hands of Stefan Hau-Riege, a materials science physicist at LLNL.

Read more ....

Dogs Catch Human Yawns

This Hungarian Vizsla is either really sleepy or just spied its owner yawning. Credit: Dreamstime.com.

From Live Science:

Spying someone yawning often makes us yawn. Now, a new study shows your canine buddy can catch yawns from you, too.

The results suggest domestic dogs have the capacity for a fundamental form of empathy, the researchers say.

The phenomenon, called contagious yawning, has been found only in humans and other primates such as chimpanzees and is thought to relate to our ability to empathize with others. Past studies, however, involved yawning within one species at a time, so for instance chimps that triggered other chimps to yawn and humans prompting yawns in other humans.

Read more ....

Aquaflow Strikes Oil With “Green Crude” From Algae

From Gas 2.0:

Do you remember going to the local pond or lake as a kid and swimming around without a care in the world? Do you remember the feel of the algae between you’re toes? Well if New Zealand company Aquaflow Bionomic has anything to say about it, we may be using that same algae to fuel our vehicles.

The company, founded in 2005, says that it has produced the first samples of green crude oil at a commercially competitive price. This could be great news for a lot of Bio-Fuel “Flip-Floppers.” The question of utilizing land based crops producing Ethanol, or animal / vegetable oil based Bio-diesel, may be coming to a close with this new contender.

Green Crude is made from wild algae grown on human sewage, and as such, would not use valuable acres which could then be used to, say, grow more food instead of fuel.

The company states that Green Crude produces 90 per cent less emissions than regular diesel, and in addition, it produces a great byproduct, clean Water for irrigation or industrial re-use.

Read more ....

New Oil-Extraction Technology

Petrobanks Capri / Thai Processes For Upgrading And Recovering Oilsands And Heavy Oil -- The Next Big Future

Graphics and information from the Sept 2008 Petrobank investors presentation (48 pages) If the Capri/Thai processes are successful then Canada's oilsands, other oilsands and heavy oil deposits around the world will have higher recovery rates using a more economic process and the oil will be upgrading in the ground to a higher and more valuable quality. This would be the technology that would crush peak oil for several decades and allow an orderly transition to a post oil world. The processes would enable trillions of barrels of oil to be economically accessed. In a few months the Capri process could be proven out and the energy world would be changed. Oil technology would change the world by unlocking the oilsand and heavy oil around the world. Trillions of barrels of oil would become economically feasible. It would be a and game changer. More projects like the one in would go ahead to access 3-4 billion barrels of oil at 120,000 bpd within 5 years.

Petrobank aims to upgrade oilsand bitumen before it ever comes to the surface. Petrobank will soon launch the CAPRI component of its in situ toe-to-heel air injection production technology. Upgrading the oil in the ground avoids the delays and costs associated with building refineries and transporting the bitumen to upgraders.

Read more ....

Hubble Finds Unidentified Object in Space, Scientists Puzzled

From Gizmodo:

This is exactly why we send astronauts to risk their life to service Hubble: in a paper published last week in the Astrophysical Journal, scientists detail the discovery of a new unidentified object in the middle of nowhere. I don't know about you, but when a research paper conclusion says "We suggest that the transient may be one of a new class" I get a chill of oooh-aaahness down my spine. Especially when after a hundred days of observation, it disappeared from the sky with no explanation. Get your tinfoil hats out, because it gets even weirder.

The object also appeared out of nowhere. It just wasn't there before. In fact, they don't even know where it is exactly located because it didn't behave like anything they know. Apparently, it can't be closer than 130 light-years but it can be as far as 11 billion light-years away. It's not in any known galaxy either. And they have ruled out a supernova too. It's something that they have never encountered before. In other words: they don't have a single clue about where or what the heck this thing is.

Read more ....

Why People Ignore Hurricane Evacuation Warnings

Boats and debris are piled up Saturday, Sept. 13, 2008 in Galveston, Texas after Hurricane Ike hit the area. AP Photo/David J. Phillip, Pool

From Live Science:

As Hurricane Ike's floodwaters begin to recede from Galveston, Texas, and other areas of the Gulf Coast, emergency responders are surveying the storm's damage and rescuing thousands of residents who ignored evacuation orders.

There are many reasons why some people don't heed evacuation notices — some think they can ride out the winds and surging waters, while others simply have nowhere to go and no way to leave. Still others remember unnecessary evacuations from botched forecasts and enter a "boy who cried 'wolf'" mentality.

"And then some people just don't perceive the risk to be that high," Rebecca Morss of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., told LiveScience.

Read more ....

Google's Decade

Ten Reasons Why Google Is Still Number One -- Technology Review

David A. Vise is a Pulitzer Prize winner and coauthor of The Google Story: Inside the Hottest Business, Media and Technology Success of Our Time, published by Delacorte Press (Updated edition 2008).

1998: Yahoo and others pass on the chance to buy new search technology developed at Stanford University for $500,000. Their rationale: "Search doesn't matter. Portals do."These rejections forced Sergey Brin and Larry Page to reluctantly take a leave of absence from Stanford (both wanted to become college professors, like their dads) to see if they could turn Google, their new search engine, into a business.

1999: A year later, Google garners $25 million from Sequoia Capital and Kleiner Perkins, even after Brin and Page insist that each venture-capital firm would only be allowed to invest half the money. This "divide and conquer" strategy leaves the denizens of Sand Hill Road to squabble with one another while Brin and Page retain control over their nascent enterprise. It also enables them to frustrate the moneymen by refusing to deface the most valuable piece of real estate on the Internet--the Google home page--by loading it up with ads, and by turning away numerous CEO candidates.

Read more ....