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Phoenix666 writes:

As if graphene needed any more strange and wonderful properties to recommend its study, it has been shown that sandwiching water between two layers of graphene causes the water to form ice at room temperature:

An international team of scientists recently discovered some intriguing structural characteristics of water confined in graphene nanocapillaries. In these studies, the researchers deposited a graphene monolayer on a small grid, added a small amount of water, and then covered it with another monolayer of graphene. This sample was left overnight to allow excess water to evaporate, eventually bringing the graphene layers together so that only a small amount of adsorbed water remained between them. The water left behind showed some unusual structural properties.

[...] The water molecules formed layers with square lattices where each molecule interacted with the four molecules surrounding it, forming hydrogen bonds at 90° angles. This square lattice symmetry, which they also saw assembled into bilayers and trilayers, is strikingly different from the normal three-dimensional arrangement in ice, where hydrogen bonds exhibit a bond angle of approximately 109°. The researchers found that this lattice structure could be produced even after certain variables had been changed, including the capillary width, applied pressure, and rigidity of the graphene sheets.

Fascinating stuff. Wouldn't it be wonderful to mine it from the air and spin it into sheets and ropes and anything at all?

Phoenix666 writes:

Ars Technica is reporting on new regulations to limit region-based restrictions in the European Union:

At the heart of the European Union lies the Single Market—the possibility for people to buy and sell goods and services anywhere in the EU. So it is ironic that the European sector least constrained by geography—the digital market—is also the least unified. To remedy that situation, the European Commission has announced its Digital Single Market Strategy, which addresses three main areas.

The first is "Better access for consumers and businesses to digital goods and services" and includes two of the thorniest issues: geo-blocking and copyright. As the EU's strategy notes, "too many Europeans cannot use online services that are available in other EU countries, often without any justification; or they are re-routed to a local store with different prices. Such discrimination cannot exist in a Single Market."

There is strong resistance to removing geo-blocking, particularly from copyright companies that have traditionally sold rights on a national basis and which therefore want geo-blocking to enforce that fragmentation. The Pirate Party Member of the European Parliament (MEP), Julia Reda, quoted a fellow MEP justifying geo-blocking as follows: "I can’t buy Finnish bread in any German supermarket or bakery. Far too few people here would buy it, so the market doesn't offer it to me. And you don’t see me demanding that the European Commission bloody-well make that product available to me."

Julia Reda responded to those who defend geo-blocking by actually buying Finnish bread online without incident or issue.

The European Union's Digital Single Market Strategy covers several other areas, including Telecom/network investment and management, copyright reform, and future goals for a single EU digital market.

As an American, it's hard to believe government could possibly work on behalf of voters, so let's see if this initiative can make it into law. But it is an enticing idea.

Phoenix666 writes:

George Mason University engineering students have designed a hand-held infrasonic extinguisher to snuff out fires without chemicals or water:

When Seth Robertson and Viet Tran from George Mason University hatched their senior project plan, there were plenty of raised eyebrows. But the doubters no doubt ate their words when the two engineering students debuted their creation: a fire extinguisher that successfully puts out flames with sound waves.

Their initial idea was to employ high-pitched tones, but as it turned out, low-frequency sounds were the ticket, "like the thump-thump bass in hip-hop," Tran told the Washington Post.

By hitting fire with the low-frequency sound waves in the 30 to 60 hertz range, the device separates oxygen from fuel. “The pressure wave is going back and forth, and that agitates where the air is. That specific space is enough to keep the fire from reigniting,” Tran said.

Conventional fire extinguishers typically employ water or chemicals which cause damage that compounds the havoc wrought by the fire itself; by comparison, a sound-based extinguisher would be great. The article does not specify how many decibels the extinguisher projects or the frequency used, but let's hope its range doesn't drop into the 17Hz range or even the 5-9Hz range.

Phoenix666 writes:

Wired reports:

Apart from water and air, humble sand is the natural resource most consumed by human beings. People use more than 40 billion tons of sand and gravel every year. There’s so much demand that riverbeds and beaches around the world are being stripped bare. (Desert sand generally doesn’t work for construction; shaped by wind rather than water, desert grains are too round to bind together well.) And the amount of sand being mined is increasing exponentially.

Though the supply might seem endless, sand is a finite resource like any other. The worldwide construction boom of recent years—all those mushrooming megacities, from Lagos to Beijing—is devouring unprecedented quantities; extracting it is a $70 billion industry. In Dubai enormous land-reclamation projects and breakneck skyscraper-building have exhausted all the nearby sources. Exporters in Australia are literally selling sand to Arabs.

It's a crazy, crazy world.

Phoenix666 writes:

An article in this week's Time magazine gives us an insight into how the process of roasting and storing cocoa beans can be adjusted to enhance the antioxidant content of the chocolate they become.

Emmanuel Ohene Afoakwa, a professor of food science and technology at the University of Ghana, and his team have figured out a new process for making chocolate that’s healthier and contains more antioxidants.

Chocolate’s antioxidants are thought to be responsible for some of its health perks related to cardiovascular health and memory support. Capitalizing on those antioxidants could not only provide better nutrition, but could be of interest to the candy industry. The researchers presented their process at the American Chemical Society’s national meeting in Denver on Tuesday.
...
Afoakwa says his team recommends consumers choose dark chocolate over milk or white chocolate since dark chocolate typically has more antioxidants and less sugar. The researchers are continuing to identify changes to the chocolate-making process that could increase the candy’s nutritional content. The researchers are currently receiving funding from the Belgium government.

There's a fine line between candy and bitter gack; I know, because my wife brings home dark chocolate that all too often crosses that line. At a certain point, why wouldn't you eat a bowl of kale if vitamins and anti-oxidants are what you're after?

Phoenix666 writes in with a story about bio-hackers creating eye drops that temporarily enhances night vision in a range of up to 50 metres.

From the article in The Independent:

Science for the Masses, an independent “citizen science” organisation that operates from the city of Tehacapi [sic], theorised that Chlorin e6 (Ce6), a natural molecule that can be created from algae and other green plants, could enhance eyesight in dark environments.

The molecule is found in some deep sea fish, forms the basis of some cancer therapies and has been previously prescribed intravenously for night blindness.
...
The next step was to moisten the eyes of biochemical researcher and willing guinea pig Gabriel Licina’s eyes with 50 microlitres of Ce6.

The effect was apparently almost instantaneous and, after an hour, he was able to distinguish shapes from 10 metres away in the dark and soon at even greater distances.

“We had people go stand in the woods,” Licina said, “At 50 metres, I could figure who they were, even if they were standing up against a tree.”

Chlorins have long been used in Photodynamic Therapy as treatment for a variety of eye disorders and cancers.

The research can be found on the Science For The Masses website.

This article over at ZME Science has more details and background about the research from the scientists involved. There, they mention the patent application which inspired their work.

Many of us have little need of night vision; in New York City there's a weird orange glow everywhere thanks to light pollution. Still, cool to have temporary night vision, cooler still that bio-hackers did it.

paulej72 writes:

As reported by TreeHugger

In the U.S. and Europe, myopia for kids and young adults has doubled; in China it’s up 80 percent. Scientists think they’ve found out why, and it’s probably not what you think.

For years the thinking was that myopia was largely genetic, but research began to show that it wasn’t purely a matter of genes. And indeed, the current increase in myopia reflects a similar increase in children reading and studying more. But surprisingly, it’s not the reading and computers and smartphones that are to blame. Now researchers believe that it’s the very act of spending too much time inside that is causing the problem.

After a great deal of research and eliminating other factors, scientists now think that it boils down to exposure to bright light. The leading hypothesis is that light stimulates the release of dopamine in the retina, and this neurotransmitter in turn blocks the elongation of the eye during development.

Based on epidemiological studies, Ian Morgan, a myopia researcher at the Australian National University in Canberra, recommends that children spend three hours per day under light levels of at least 10,000 lux for protection against the condition. Ten thousand lux would be about the amount of light one would get from beneath a shady tree on a bright summer day (and wearing sunglasses). For comparison, a well-lit schoolroom or office is generally under 500 lux.

Phoenix666 writes:

In honor of spring, a story about seed libraries:

The sharing of seed is an ancient practice, ensuring the survival of the human species, the local biodiversity of life, as well as local food security. If one gets philosophical about it, one could even say that the seed embodies a traditional, holistic knowledge of life that is as unbroken as the existence of the seed itself, and that is certainly a beautiful thing to think about.

But informal seed sharing -- a favourite pastime of gardeners everywhere -- may be considered illegal by some American states. According to a recent report by Mother Earth News, a number of states have laws in the books that require getting permits to sell seeds, and requires that they are properly labelled and tested, which makes sense if it's for commercial purposes. But some states actually include "giving away" in their definition of "selling," and that's where problems are arising. For small-time gardeners, informal seed swaps and seed libraries are a way to share in the spirit of cooperation and as a way to preserve the legacy of local plant biodiversity. To apply rules to hobbyists that are designed to regulate commercial operations is a bit mind-boggling, to say in the least.

At the recent, 34th Annual Making Brooklyn Bloom event at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, Onika Abraham, Director of Farm School NYC, gave the keynote address, "Roots of Resilience," in which she talked about how African slaves smuggled the seeds they needed to America, hidden in the braids of their hair. Perhaps people may need to do so again.

It's a situation quite analogous to file sharing, and the sharing economy in general (DRM in video games to prevent second sales is another example). We have a pretty good idea of how it's turned out vis-a-vis the music industry, and more and more with video and movies. Are those results widely applicable? Or is the learning curve for open source, seed sharing, and the like too high? Could it spread far enough to fatally undermine centralized business models?

Phoenix666 writes:

An autonomous sub-hunting ship passed an important technological milestone and the oceans may never be the same.

In 2010, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, announced that they were building a 132-foot autonomous boat to track quiet, diesel-powered submarines. The program was dubbed Anti-submarine Warfare Continuous Trail Unmanned Vessel, or ACTUV.

To little notice, the system earlier this year passed a critical test, moving much closer to actual deployment and potentially changing not just naval warfare but also the way humans, ships, and robotic systems interact across the world’s waters.

In six weeks of tests along a 35-nautical mile stretch of water off of Mississippi, testers at engineering company Leidos and DARPA put the ACTUV’s systems through 100 different scenarios. The test boat, equipped with nothing more than off-the-shelf radar components, a digital area chart and some proprietary software, was able to complete an autonomous trip without crashing into rocks, shoals, or erratically behaving surface vessels. In future tests, the ship will tail a target boat at 1 kilometer distance.

Reminds me of an old STNG episode, prompting the question, yet again, "Does Man learn *nothing* from Star Trek?"

AnonTechie writes:

Adam Davidson at The New York Times has a story debunking the myth of the job-stealing immigrant:

When I was growing up in the 1980s, I watched my grandfather — my dad’s stepdad — struggle with his own prejudice. He was a blue-collar World War II veteran who loved his family above all things and was constantly afraid for them. He carried a gun and, like many men of his generation, saw threats in people he didn’t understand: African-Americans, independent women, gays. By the time he died, 10 years ago, he had softened. He stopped using racist and homophobic slurs; he even hugged my gay cousin. But there was one view he wasn’t going to change. He had no time for Hispanics, he told us, and he wasn’t backing down. After all, this wasn’t a matter of bigotry. It was plain economics. These immigrants were stealing jobs from “Americans.”

I’ve been thinking about my grandfather lately, because there are signs that 2015 could bring about the beginning of a truce — or at least a reconfiguration — in the politics of immigration. Several of the potential Republican presidential candidates, most notably Jeb Bush, have expressed pro-immigration views. Even self-identified Tea Party Republicans respond three to two in favor of a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. Every other group — Republicans in general, independents and especially Democrats — is largely pro-immigrant. According to Pew, roughly as many people (18 percent of Americans) believed in 2010 that President Obama was a Muslim as believe today that undocumented immigrants should be expelled from the United States. Of course, that 18 percent can make a lot of noise. But for everyone else, immigration seems to be going the way of same-sex marriage, marijuana and the mohawk — it’s something that a handful of people freak out about but that the rest of us have long since come to accept.

Phoenix666 writes:

Gorgeous new images of the Martian surface (javascript required, but see below) taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft have been released:

Mars might not look like much from Earth, but close up, it's a perfect spectacle of natural beauty.

Since 2006, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft has been orbiting Mars snapping pictures of the surface with its HiRISE camera.

Here is a collection of some of the most incredible images the camera has taken over the years.

The HiRISE images shown here have false coloring that highlights distinct Martian features, like sand dunes shown in the image to the right. The false-coloring helps scientists see how the grooves and troughs of these features change over time.

We can only imagine the poetry future settlers on Mars will write when inspired by these landforms.

[Update: Thanks to melikamp who pointed out in a comment that pictures are available, without javascript, at: http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/nea.php]

AnonTechie writes with news of a story appearing in The Conversation:

It’s frequently claimed that copyright law should be made more restrictive and copyright terms extended in order to provide an incentive for content creators.

But with growing use of works put into the public domain or released under free and permissive licenses such as Creative Commons or the GPL and its derivatives, it’s possible to argue the opposite — that freely-available works also generate value.

Public domain works — those that exist without restriction on use either because their copyright term has expired or because they fall outside of the scope of copyright protection — create significant economic benefits, according to research my colleagues and I have conducted, now published in a report for the UK government’s Intellectual Property Office. ( https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/copyright-and-the-value-of-the-public-domain )

Hugh Pickens writes:

Bill Davidow and Michael S. Malone write in The Wall Street Journal that recent rains have barely made a dent in California's enduring drought, now in its fourth year so it's time to solve the state’s water problem with radical solutions, and they can begin with “virtual water.” This concept describes water that is used to produce food or other commodities, such as cotton. According to Davidow and Malone, when those commodities are shipped out of state, virtual water is exported. Today California exports about six trillion gallons of virtual water, or about 500 gallons per resident a day. How can this happen amid drought? The problem is mis-pricing. If water were priced properly, it is a safe bet that farmers would waste far less of it, and the effects of California’s drought—its worst in recorded history—would not be so severe. "A free market would raise the price of water, reflecting its scarcity, and lead to a reduction in the export of virtual water," say Davidow and Malone. "A long history of local politics, complicated regulation and seemingly arbitrary controls on distribution have led to gross inefficiency."

For example, producing almonds is highly profitable when water is cheap but almond trees are thirsty, and almond production uses about 10% of California’s total water supply. The thing is, nuts use a whole lot of water: it takes about a gallon of water to grow one almond, and nearly five gallons to produce a walnut. "Suppose an almond farmer could sell real water to any buyer, regardless of county boundaries, at market prices—many hundreds of dollars per acre-foot—if he agreed to cut his usage in half, say, by drawing only two acre-feet, instead of four, from his wells," say the authors. "He might have to curtail all or part of his almond orchard and grow more water-efficient crops. But he also might make enough money selling his water to make that decision worthwhile." Using a similar strategy across its agricultural industry, California might be able to reverse the economic logic that has driven farmers to plant more water-intensive crops. "This would take creative thinking, something California is known for, and trust in the power of free markets," conclude the authors adding that "almost anything would be better, and fairer, than the current contradictory and self-defeating regulations."

janrinok writes:

I'm sure that you would like to join with us in welcoming three new editors to the team. They will be coming online sometime during the next few days. They are:

• NotSanguine
• cmn32480
• CoolHand

The new additions bring the editorial team to a healthier size, which will enable us to achieve and maintain the standards that we believe the community deserves.

Hugh Pickens writes:

The atom bomb — leveler of Hiroshima and instant killer of some 80,000 people — is just a pale cousin compared to the hydrogen bomb, another product of American ingenuity, that easily packs the punch of a thousand Hiroshimas. That is why Washington has for decades done everything in its power to keep the details of its design out of the public domain. Now William J. Broad reports in the NYT that Kenneth W. Ford has defied a federal order to cut material from his new book that the government says teems with thermonuclear secrets. Ford says he included the disputed material because it had already been disclosed elsewhere and helped him paint a fuller picture of an important chapter of American history. But after he volunteered the manuscript for a security review, federal officials told him to remove about 10 percent of the text, or roughly 5,000 words. “They wanted to eviscerate the book,” says Ford. “My first thought was, ‘This is so ridiculous I won’t even respond.’ ” For instance, the federal agency wanted him to strike a reference to the size of the first hydrogen test device — its base was seven feet wide and 20 feet high. Dr. Ford responded that public photographs of the device, with men, jeeps and a forklift nearby, gave a scale of comparison that clearly revealed its overall dimensions.

Though difficult to make, hydrogen bombs are attractive to nations and militaries because their fuel is relatively cheap. Inside a thick metal casing, the weapon relies on a small atom bomb that works like a match to ignite the hydrogen fuel. Today, Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States are the only declared members of the thermonuclear club, each possessing hundreds or thousands of hydrogen bombs. Military experts suspect that Israel has dozens of hydrogen bombs. India, Pakistan and North Korea are seen as interested in acquiring the potent weapon. The big secret the book discusses is thermal equilibrium, the discovery that the temperature of the hydrogen fuel and the radiation could match each other during the explosion (PDF). World Scientific, a publisher in Singapore, recently made Dr. Ford’s book public in electronic form, with print versions to follow. Ford remains convinced the book “contains nothing whatsoever whose dissemination could, by any stretch of the imagination, damage the United States or help a country that is trying to build a hydrogen bomb.” “Were I to follow all — or even most — of your suggestions,” says Ford, “it would destroy the book.”