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For Frack’s Sake: U.S. Wants Natural Gas as Major Auto Fuel Option
February 29th, 2012Via: Network World:
Natural gas has never been much of an option for US car drivers and its going to take a lot of effort by the government and auto manufactures to make it a viable alternative to gas.
But that’s just what a $10 million program from the Department of Energy’s advanced project development group The Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-E) aims to start anyway. ARPA-E’s Methane Opportunities for Vehicular Energy (MOVE) program wants to develop system “that could enable natural gas vehicles with on-board storage and at-home refueling with a five-year payback or upfront cost differential of $2,000, which excludes the balance of system and installation costs.”
From ARPA-E: “Specific aims include technological advancements in the area of (1) new sorbent materials for low-pressure storage of natural gas and (2) new high-strength, low-cost materials and manufacturing processes for conformable tanks capable of high-pressure (250 bar) natural gas storage. Low-pressure approaches inherently reduce the cost on home refueling; however for high-pressure approaches this program also seeks (3) innovative low-cost, high-performance compressor technology.”
According to the agency, there are over 13 million natural gas vehicles on the road worldwide but only 120,000 in the United States. But with what the agency termed as massive increases in the US natural gas reserves over the past decade, there is now an “unprecedented opportunity for advancing the economic, national, and environmental security of the nation. Spurred by technological advances in shale gas production, increased natural gas reserves have led to a decoupling of domestic natural gas with global petroleum prices, and historically low natural gas prices relative to petroleum.”
Related: Fracking Industry Executives Suggest Military PSYOP Techniques to Peers for Dealing with Public
Portions of 9/11 Victims’ Remains Taken to Landfill
February 29th, 2012Of course, any evidence related to one of the greatest crimes in history would be incinerated and disposed of in a landfill.
This is my favorite part:
The report said that the Sept. 11 remains in question “could not be tested or identified,” apparently because they were too small or charred to allow for DNA analysis.
Too small, were they?
This is from the U.S. Government’s DNA Initiative website:
Numerous cases have been solved by DNA analysis of saliva on cigarette butts, postage stamps, and the area around the mouth opening on ski masks. DNA analysis of a single hair (without the root) found deep in the victim’s throat provided a critical piece of evidence used in a capital murder conviction.
Via: Washington Post:
Some human remains recovered from the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the Pentagon and in Shanksville, Pa., were incinerated and dumped in a landfill, the Defense Department said Tuesday in the latest revelation about mishandled body parts at the Dover Air Force Base mortuary.
A new Pentagon review of the troubled mortuary disclosed several other problems — including fresh allegations of fraud and misplaced remains — over the past decade despite previous assurances by Air Force officials that they had adequately investigated operations at the base.
The revelation that “several portions of remains” recovered from the Pentagon and Shanksville ended up in a landfill was mentioned briefly on the latter pages of a report released Tuesday after an investigation led by retired Army Gen. John P. Abizaid.
The report said that the Sept. 11 remains in question “could not be tested or identified,” apparently because they were too small or charred to allow for DNA analysis. The remains were cremated and then mixed with biomedical waste at the Dover mortuary, where they were given to a contractor who incinerated them and dumped the residue in a landfill.
The report cites Army and Air Force memos from July and August 2002 directing that an unspecified number of “remains from the Attack on the Pentagon” be incinerated.
Syria Crops Sheltered in Arctic Doomsday Vault
February 29th, 2012Via: AP:
Chick peas, fava beans and other seeds from a facility in Syria are among the 25,000 new samples being deposited this week in an Arctic seed vault built to protect food crops from wars and natural disasters, officials said Tuesday.
The latest additions mean that the Svalbard Global Seed Vault — a master backup to the world’s other seed banks — has now secured more than 740,000 samples since it opened in a remote Norwegian archipelago in 2008.
That represents an estimated three-quarters of the biological diversity of the world’s major food crops, said Cary Fowler, executive director of the Global Crop Diversity Trust, which maintains the vault with Norway’s government and the Nordic Genetic Resources Center.
With the shipment from the Syria-based International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas, almost its entire collection is now backed up in Svalbard, Fowler told The Associated Press.
“I think the events unfolding in Syria obviously underline the importance of having safety duplication outside of a country,” he said, adding the facility had not been damaged in the military crackdown on an anti-government uprising.
He noted that wars destroyed seed banks in Iraq and Afghanistan. Another one in Egypt was looted during last year’s uprising.
The Svalbard Global Seed Vault — sometimes referred to as a doomsday vault — is designed to withstand global warming, earthquakes and even nuclear strikes.
Research Credit: afterhours
Judge Dismisses Organic Farmers’ Case Against Monsanto
February 29th, 2012Via: NPR:
A New York federal court today dismissed a lawsuit against agribusiness giant Monsanto brought by thousands of certified organic farmers. The farmers hoped the suit would protect them against infringing on the company’s crop patents in the future.
The Organic Seed Growers and Trade Association and several other growers and organizations do not use Monsanto seeds. But they were betting that the judge would agree that Monsanto should not be allowed to sue them if pollen from the company’s patented crops happened to drift into their fields.
Instead, the judge found that plaintiffs’ allegations were “unsubstantiated … given that not one single plaintiff claims to have been so threatened.” The ruling also found that the plaintiffs had “overstate[d] the magnitude of [Monsanto’s] patent enforcement.” Monsanto brings an average of 13 patent-enforcement lawsuits per year, which, the judge said, “is hardly significant when compared to the number of farms in the United States, approximately two million.”
Related: noncompliant
Durable Goods Orders in U.S. Slump 4%, Most in Three Years
February 28th, 2012Via: Bloomberg:
Orders for U.S. durable goods fell in January by the most in three years, led by a slowdown in demand for commercial aircraft and business equipment.
Bookings for goods meant to last at least three years slumped 4 percent, more than forecast, after a revised 3.2 percent gain the prior month, data from the Commerce Department showed today in Washington. Economists projected a 1 percent decline, according to the median forecast in a Bloomberg News survey.
White House Pumped Millions Into NYPD’s Muslim Surveillance Programs
February 28th, 2012Via: CBS:
Millions of dollars in White House money has helped pay for New York Police Department programs that put entire American Muslim neighborhoods under surveillance.
The money is part of a little-known grant intended to help law enforcement fight drug crimes. Since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the Bush and Obama administrations have provided $135 million to the New York and New Jersey region through the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area program, known as HIDTA.
Some of that money — it’s unclear exactly how much because the program has little oversight — has paid for the cars that plainclothes NYPD officers used to conduct surveillance on Muslim neighborhoods. It also paid for computers that store even innocuous information about Muslim college students, mosque sermons and social events.
IBM Breakthrough May Make Practical Quantum Computer 15 Years Away Instead of 50
February 28th, 2012Via: New York Times:
I.B.M. is jumping into an area of computing that has, until now, been primarily the province of academia: the quest to build a quantum computer.
A computer that took advantage of the oddities of quantum physics could solve in seconds certain problems that would occupy present-day computers for billions of years. But for now, it is impossible to build such a computer because the bits of information it would need for the calculations fall apart before a calculation can be completed. The problem is, in essence, like trying to knit a sweater with yarn that unravels before the first purl.
On Tuesday, I.B.M. researchers will present experimental results that they say put them close to solving this problem, both by lengthening the lifetime of the quantum bits of information and by quickening the pace of computation. The presentation will take place at a meeting of the American Physical Society in Boston.
“In the past, people have said, maybe it’s 50 years away, it’s a dream, maybe it’ll happen sometime,” said Mark B. Ketchen, manager of the physics of information group at I.B.M.’s Thomas J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, N.Y. “I used to think it was 50. Now I’m thinking like it’s 15 or a little more. It’s within reach. It’s within our lifetime. It’s going to happen.”
Many university researchers have done good work solving the basic science problems, Dr. Ketchen said, but “it’s going take an I.B.M. in the end to put it together.”
It’s still too early for I.B.M. to have a commercial product in mind, but computer scientists are encouraged that the company is paying attention.
Scott Aaronson, a professor of electrical engineering and computer science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, called I.B.M.’s work “a cause for cautious optimism” in the development of quantum computers.
“It looks very interesting,” Dr. Aaronson said of the I.B.M. research. “Basically, it’s another step in continuing progress.”
While a working quantum computer is still quite a few years away, there have been a number of advances over the last couple of years, and the I.B.M. one is just among the most recent. These days, the path to the future now looks more like a series of very hard engineering problems rather than an uphill fight against physics.
University of Melbourne ‘Ethicists’ Call for Legalized Murder of Newborns
February 28th, 2012Via: Journal of Medical Ethics:
Abortion is largely accepted even for reasons that do not have anything to do with the fetus’ health. By showing that (1) both fetuses and newborns do not have the same moral status as actual persons, (2) the fact that both are potential persons is morally irrelevant and (3) adoption is not always in the best interest of actual people, the authors argue that what we call ‘after-birth abortion’ (killing a newborn) should be permissible in all the cases where abortion is, including cases where the newborn is not disabled.
Related: UK Bioethicist: Pregnancy and Natural Birth Should Not Be Tolerated
U.S. Air Force Developing “Optionally-Manned” Nuclear Bomber
February 27th, 2012Via: The Diplomat:
The Air Force has been working on a bomber since 2006, according to most reports, with the aim of first complementing then replacing the existing fleet of 150 B-52, B-1 and B-2 bombers, the oldest of which date from the early 1960s. Then-U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates suspended the bomber development in 2009, citing out-of-control cost and technical ambition.
But Gates’ successor, Leon Panetta, revived the bomber work as part of the Pentagon’s “strategic pivot” towards the Asia-Pacific region, whose long distances pose huge problems for military planners – and play to the strengths of heavy bombers. The so-called “Long-Range Strike Bomber” is meant to be stealthy, capable of carrying nuclear weapons and “optionally-manned,” meaning it can be remotely flown without a pilot on board.
Boeing, Northrop Grumman and Lockheed are all competing for the Long-Range Strike Bomber contract. The fleet of up to 100 new bombers is expected to cost at least $55 billion over the next 20 years.
