Zark's

Good or Evil Wind?

Small-scale Commercial Windmill
Image Credit: U.S. Geological Survey

Mmm.  Are windmills part of the energy solution, or are they are a diversion?

Wind turbines to be built in Lake Erie by 2012, group says, tells that the state wants to create a wind turbine farm in the waters of Lake Erie.  This first project would only have eight turbines with an aggregate capacity of 20 MW.  But this is an incremental step toward placing hundreds of wind turbines in Lake Erie.  The lake is the shallowest of the Great Lakes, described as an asset for constructing the towers.  The Request for Proposal can be downloaded here.  It is a good opportunity for someone in the right place.

Turbine Foes Dealt Bad Hand describes some of the silly arguments being composed to deny windmills for someone's own backyard (or lake).  Toxic sediments could be disturbed on the lake floor when constructing the towers.  The noise of the turbines, only 1 km offshore will be disturbing and will drive down property values for those that paid for water views.  There could also be epileptic fits from the wind turbines' strobe effect.

Considerably more thoughtful is The Answer is Not Blowing in the Wind.  The author asserts that energy dependence has Congress and individuals rushing to any alternative source, whether it makes sense or not.  Most dangerous from the headlong rush into dubious projects is the loss of resources that could be applied to worthy projects.  Although a common argument, Dr. Perry claims the complete carbon footprint of the wind turbines must be considered.  How much CO2 was produced for the turbines and their structures?  He believes a wind turbine starts out with a huge carbon debt that will take years to repay.

Sheesh.  The real question is the final carbon footprint.  Unfortunately, the error bands in this computation can place almost any alternative source as either good or bad.  Biofuels are certainly in this category.  Yet, it would seem there is a carbon footprint or penalty for doing nothing.  I believe we need some wind farms to better understand the advantages.  A smart grid will allow us to better utilize these energy sources that can be offline (or the wind isn't blowing).  But we do need to consider the big picture.

Court Decisions on Gene Patents

A toxin-producing cyanobacteria with natural chlorophyll fluorescence (red) and DNA stain (green).
Image Credit: Barry Rosen, U.S. Geological Survey

A Gene Patent Purely About Greed scarcely disguises the author's opinion of gene patents.  Last week a U.S. Appeals court disallowed a broad gene patent that had been granted to Harvard, MIT, and The Whitehead Institute for Biomedical research.

The Forbes article tells that the patent concerned any drugs that modulate the gene NF-kB, which appears in many cellular processes.  The patent was so broad that it covered any drug that manipulated any human gene.  The licensee of the patent, Ariad Pharmaceuticals, won the original court case, and Eli Lilly was ordered to pay $65M in addition to 2.3 percent in future sales.

Appeals Court Strikes Down Another Generic Biotech Patent tells this ruling was similar to University of Rochester v. Pharmacia.  In the latter case, the court ruled that the patent application did not include a sufficient description of the invention.  The ars technica article says, "Every patent must describe an invention."

More closely watched is the lawsuit filed by American Civil Liberties Union against Myriad Genetics.  Myriad Breast Cancer Patent Very Broad, Study Finds, explains the patent "... extends to portions of most genes in the human genome."  As I have blogged in the past, Myriad's patent effectively prevents alternative or even second opinion testing for the breast cancer gene.  The Manhattan Court is not expected to rule for several months.

From the Cornell University Law School - Title 35, Part II, Chapter 10, Paragraph 101 . Inventions Patentable - "Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title." 

The problem is the 'discovers' above.  Probably most individuals that do not own a gene patent would agree it seems wrong to patent the genes 'invented' by nature, not mankind.  Maybe though, Congress needs to change the law, or is it the purpose of the courts to correct errors in the law?

When Engineers Overreach

St. Frances Dam prior to the 1928 Failure
Image Credit: USGS, Stearns, H.T. 664

In the Path Between the Seas, David McCullough provides a masterful account of French Ferdinand de Lesseps' vision of a Panama Canal.  Ferdinand was not an engineer - he was a rainmaker.  Successful at harnessing French engineering to complete the Suez Canal in 1869, de Lesseps decided a canal could be constructed in Panama without even visiting the site of the canal.  There were many unsolvable problems, but he was convinced that during the construction, the rapid ascent of 19th century science and engineering would provide the solutions. 

The French attempt at constructing the Panama Canal was costly in lives and fortunes.  It ruined the futures and retirements of many French citizens who had invested in the grand opportunity to repeat the Suez miracle.  Thousands of workers and engineers lost their lives due to malaria, yellow fever, and other tropical diseases.  It was an unimaginable catastrophe for French engineering.

A similar failure, but not as large, was the St. Francis Dam, constructed 40 miles north of Los Angeles in 1926.  Wiki explains that similar to de Lesseps, William Mulholland, chief engineer of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power had been uncommonly innovative in the construction of the Los Angeles Aqueduct in 1913.

During the construction, Mulholland twice increased the height of the dam by ten feet, raising it to a total of 195 feet.  The expanded reservoir had a capacity of 38,000 acre-feet.  USGS explains it was a massive gravity dam - it held back water by its sheer weight alone, there was no buttressing into the sides of the canyon.  It failed on March 12, 1928, devastating 65 miles of valley, and killing over 500 people. 

St. Frances Dam after the 1928 Failure
Image Credit: USGS, Stearns, H.T. 665

As the photo above details, there is not much remaining after a dam failure.  The Wiki account tells that Mulholland had been summoned to the dam several times with reports of cracks and seepage.  He had considered everything within limits and did not initiate any emergency action.  USGS explains the failure occurred not because of the dam, but because a pre-existing landslide on the east abutment that became saturated with water from the reservoir. 

Although the presence of the paleeolandslide was beyond the knowledge of civil engineers and geologists at the time, Mulholland assumed all responsibility for the disaster.  The Los Angeles court cleared Mulholland of charges, with the self-taught engineer retreating into self-imposed isolation.

St. Francis Dam Disaster: Today is the 82nd Anniversary of Avoidable Disaster provides a new perspective.  First, the gravity design was probably inadequate.  The dam simply did not have adequate pressure relief.  Then the concrete itself was of poor quality, filled with voids, a result of poor construction techniques.  Recent speculation is that the dam was not strong enough.

Mmm.  What do we learn from these examples?  Common to de Lesseps and Mulholland was fame and success from previous achievements.  That success perhaps blinded them to unknowns that would have concerned them previously.  In both, it was unknowns that resulted in failure.

(If you are interested in contemporary fiction about a dam engineer, check out my novel, Butterflies Escape.)

Science Must Develop Integrity

Image Credit: U. S. Navy photo by Chief Yeoman Alphonso Braggs.

I'm troubled by Meat-Eating Vs. Driving: Another Climate Change Error?  The Time article explains that the United Nation Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) errored in reporting that animal agriculture is responsible for 18 percent of the world's carbon emissions.  For the past several months, we have been reading stories of how agriculture is damaging the atmosphere more than fossil fuel burning automobiles.

One of the authors of the report admits the report inaccurately calculated the total carbon footprints of the agriculture and and transportation sectors.  Further, they knew it before publishing the report.

Earlier this year, we also learned, Himalayan Melting: How a Climate Panel Got It Wrong.  The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) had estimated all of the Himalayan glaciers would be melted by 2035.  Fact checking revealed data did not substantiate that conclusion.

Remember the hacking of an email server, now tagged, ClimateGate, revealed disturbing practices and liberties of an international climate change group.  Fallout Over "ClimateGate" Data Leak Grows suggests that supposedly scientific data has been hijacked to advance specific agendas.  The Tip of the Climategate Iceberg discusses problems with data from NASA, NOAA, and NCDC.  Poor quality control and continual revisions result in less than credible data.

The public and decision makers need accurate data, not hyped positions, and worst of all, falsified data.  The humans on this planet must balance complex allocation of resources and accurate data is required.  A scientist might be appalled that decision makers could justify coal or natural gas electrical power plants, but it is wrong to falsify or color the data to skew policy decisions.  If that scientist feels so passionate about the issue, then she should run for political office, instead of falsifying data.

I think the aggregate data demonstrate both rising temperatures and an increase in greenhouse gases, but the poor quality of climate data weakens the argument.  Atmospheric carbon-14 measurements, using background levels established by 1960s nuclear weapon testing, seem to correlate the increased carbon in the atmosphere to consumption of fossil fuels. 

To address the serious problem of greenhouse gases, we need accurate data, not agendas.

Where Are the Stars?

Image Credit: Sky And Telescope

WorldWide Telescope (WWT) is an amazing product, especially considering it is free.  After downloading the client, I have spent many hours exploring the sky.  Although I have been immersed in science since I was knee-high to a grasshopper, I never understood the trajectory of the stars across the sky.  After exploring the WWT, I have a much better understanding of astronomy. 

One of the cool features is that you can use WWT to display where tonight's stars will be located and when.  There are other resources such as Sky and Telescope which provide diagrams such as shown on the left.

Bing Integrates Worldwide Telescope into Maps explains that using Bing, you can now navigate to a map to see what the overhead stars will be for a specific location.  To try it out, browse to BingMaps.  In the left-hand pane, at the bottom, there is a rectangular button named Map Apps.  It brings up a menu - select WorldWide Telescope.  Then in the upper left-hand pane, it ask, "Do you want to see some stars?"  Then you can place the telescope on the map and adjust the time to view the constellations that will be overhead.  Pretty cool?

Of course - there's an app for that.  Astronomy club looks to the stars explains there is a phone app that allows you to point your phone at the sky and it will tell what constellations are there.

Regeneration Without Stem Cells

Stem Cell Images
Credit - Stem Cell Information, NIH

A question that you have probably asked - If embryonic stem cells are so powerful, why do adult organisms not have them?  If there was a strong advantage for embryonic stem cells, then it seems the more complex organisms would have them readily available for organ and tissue repair.  Engineers and Scientists look for patterns in the world.

Zebrafish Study With Human Heart Implications provides part of the answer.  The Medical News Today article explains that bony fish have the ability to regrow muscle tissue.  Researchers inserted a 'green' gene into the cardiomyocytes of a zebrafish.  (Cardiomyocytes are the muscle cells of the heart.)  With such a fish, they removed 20 percent of its heart and waited for it to regrow.

After the heart regenerated itself, they examined the new tissue under a microscope.  It glowed green, indicating that the origin of the repair was the original muscle tissue, not embyronic stem cells hidden somewhere inside the fish.  Apparently some process switched the adult cardiac cells into a juvenile form, where they could rapidly divide and replace the missing tissue.

Aside from providing philosophic guidance for the regeneration of human tissue, it immediately advances the therapy for heart damage.  Fish Show How to Fix a Broken Heart explains that human hearts do not possess the ability to regenerate tissue.  Instead of healthy cardiac muscle tissue, heart attack victims develop scar tissue that cannot contract.  The human hearts do have a slight defensive mechanism - the muscle cells can hibernate and survive, but they have to detect damage is in process before they can hibernate.  If they don't react quickly enough, they are killed from lack of oxygen.

The new zebrafish revelation guides human heart researchers into searching for molecules or proteins that could switch human cardiac cells into performing a similar repair.  Wouldn't be interesting if we found something better than stem cells?

A Manufacturing Revolution is Stirring

Automated Milling Machine
Photo Credit: John B. Snyder, U.S. Army

At the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, the trade secrets of the textile looms and other machinery were closely protected by Europe.  But the information eventually leaked to the fledgling United States and New England rapidly exploited the numerous streams and other resources to challenge Europe's manufacturing supremacy. 

In the 1980s, it was Japan, following the manufacturing wisdom of W. Edwards Deming that surpassed the West.  More recently, European and North American companies have been simultaneously delighted and dismayed at the manufacturing prowess of Asian companies.  There are few secrets in this age of the internet.

But I sense a change.  3D printing is a new manufacturing technology that will displace today's Asian manufacturing advantages, particularly the close proximity of a complete supply chain.  These printers deposit a layer of material only a few micrometers thick on each pass of the print head.  But each layer is additive, and after hundreds of passes,  a three dimensional product has been generated.  Materials science is rapidly producing new types of 'ink' that can be additively applied and then heated or otherwise activated into a permanent product. 

The metal parts being machined by the automated milling machine in the photograph could be produced by today's 3D printers.  Today's limitation is the size of the printing bed - how large a surface the print head can accurately position and deposit its material or ink.  In 2009, the largest commercial printers were limited to about 12 inches, although much larger prototypes had been fabricated. 

Today, most product development centers use 3D printers for the fabrication of prototype housing and small parts.  Similar to the development of printed circuit boards in the electronics industry, the 3D printers will evolve and produce tomorrow's products from anywhere.  It will break today's supply chains. 

Last year I was at a graduation party with some former HP execs. I asked when HP would be releasing its first 3D printer, and I was politely ignored (that happens to me frequently) as if I had never asked the question.  HP Gears Up to Go 3D tells that we should see the first product soon.  Hewlett Packard Prepares Entry in Rapid Prototyping Market explains the company will be leveraging technology from Stratasys - Fused Deposition Modeling.  The Design News article speculates the global market for 3D printers could be 50,000.  Remember when the total GPS receiver market was estimated at 40,000?  3D printing is going to change manufacturing.

How Do Things Become Fair?

 

Mirror, Mirror, Who's the Fairest of Them All?
Image Credit: NASA

Moral Lessons, Down Aisle 9 describes a sociology experiment with five widely different groups of people.  Who do you think researchers found most fair? a) Amazon Indians, b) Siberian settlers, c) Himalayan monks, d) African hunter-gatherers, and e) Wal-Mart shoppers in Missouri. 

If you guessed the Missourians, you guessed right!  It was a sophisticated test that measured people's sense of fairness toward strangers.  Humans Learned Fairness at Farmer's Markets, Study Suggests attempts to understand the results.  Socially complex societies rely upon fairness, whereas societies where people are foragers or gatherers, tend to be selfish.  Human societies and organizations cannot become large or complex if every individual is selfish, because that requires everyone to develop defenses against others taking advantage of them.

A culture thrives when self-defense barriers are non-existent and that wasted energy is actually channeled into productive behavior.  Fair Play also observes that religion plays a role, particularly Christianity, with its moral codes.  The Economist article also notes that such religions have a positive economic value.  It might explain why societies that have embraced them have become successful. 

In my research, I discovered Fairness.com, a website devoted to fairness issues, which has some interesting links.  Something I did not find discussed in my research was - mercy.  Fairness can become legalistic, or judgmental.  If it is a choice between fairness or mercy, I choose mercy.

What Happened to the H1N1 Epidemic?

H1N1 Virus - Image Credit: U.S. Army

The CDC tells that the U.S. first experienced the H1N1 pandemic in spring of 2009, followed by a second wave in the fall of 2009.  During the 2009 flu season, H1N1 appears to have 'crowded out' the seasonal varieties.  

Last week, none of the 50 states reported widespread influenza activity.  Only Alabama, Georgia, and Mississippi reported regional influenza activity.  The graph below illustrates reported patient visits for influenza-like symptoms during the pandemic's progression. 

U.S. Patient Visits Reported for Influenza - Image Credit: Centers for Disease Control

Now that the pandemic appears over, health and government officials are receiving criticism for overreaction.  The Pandemic that Wasn't, worries that alerting the public for vaccination unnecessarily will result in lower compliance for the next alert.  H1N1 Flu Spreads Slower than Seasonal Flu: Study tells that children were more likely to contract H1N1.  About 9 percent of households with H1N1 resulted in another household member developing the flu.  The medical community is debating whether H1N1 was as infectious as seasonal flu, but thankfully, it was not a particularly lethal pandemic.

The Solar Wind

Creation of the solar wind
Image Credit: NASA

The Solar Wind is a trail of charged particles ejected by the Sun.  On average, they travel at 1 million miles per hour, and with an average distance to the sun of 92,900,000 miles, the solar wind takes on average, 93 hours to reach the earth. 

The actual source of the solar wind is the Sun's corona, or upper atmosphere.  In a process not understood, the hot gases reach temperatures too hot for the Sun's intense gravity to contain them.  Solar Wind Features explains that the solar wind varies in speed from 0.5 million miles per hour to 2.6 million miles per hour.  If the corona ejections include particles with magnetic fields, the solar wind will contain magnetic clouds.

The probability of Coronal Mass Ejection (CMEs) and higher solar winds increases with sunspot activity.  CMEs are huge bubbles of gas threaded with magnetic lines that are ejected over a period of several hours.  At a solar minimum (roughly now), there is an average of one CME per week.  At a solar maximum, the number increases to almost three per week.  The predicted cycle for our current sunspot cycle is shown below. 

Sunspot Cycle 24 Prediction: Image Credit: NASA

While researching my novel, Butterflies Escape, I was intrigued that particles carried by the solar wind do not have a constant speed.  On the journey from the Sun to Earth, the particles can speed up and slow down several times.  Also, the speed of coronal mass ejections (CME) is dependent upon the previous solar wind activity.  While it might take 93 hours for a first CME to reach Earth, a closely-followed CME might require only 60 or 48 hours.  It appears that the first ejection clears out the slow-moving particles and junk, leaving a "clean" path for the second CME.

Why We Study the Sun explains that the solar wind and other solar phenomena can change the orbits of satellites and even damage them with energetic and magnetic particles. If the wind is particularly strong, it can seriously disrupt the Earth's magnetic field, which can create power surges in the power grids, and damage electrical distribution and generation equipment.  For astronauts outside the Earth's protective magnetic field, a strong solar wind can imperil their health.