Fusion to Meet the Energy Needs of the Future

ITER creates a hot fusion science experiment that may determine energy capabilities of the future.

    

On PopSci.com this week was a feature on ITER's hot fusion reaction experiment. The project, which is an international effort of scientists and engineers from the U.S., Russia, China, Korea, Japan, and the European Union, in the works for decades, but wasn't officially underway until November 2006, when the ITER agreement between the constituent nations was signed in Paris. Since then these nations have worked together with the understanding that energy demands will skyrocket in the coming decades and that our current means of energy production will be insufficient. According to the ITER website, energy demands are projected to triple by the end of the century, yet as fossil fuel costs continue to rise despite global recession and companies are forced to adopt dirtier methods of extraction it has become clear that fossil fuels are dwindling. The ITER Team, and its constituent nations, have decided that fusion is the answer.

     Despite the well-known and well-publicized failures of cold fusion, hot fusion remains a very real and practical option for clean and copious energy. The fusion reaction take place in a donut-shaped containment apparatus called a tokamak. The tokamak holds two radioactive isotopes of hydrogen (deuterium and tritiem) which are held in place by magnetic fields. These isotopes are bombarded with particle beams and microwaves until they reach a temperature of 270 million degrees F, at which point the nuclei of both fuse (hence the name fusion). The heat from this future is captured by turbines which create electricity. The ITER reactor will be the largest tokamak ever built, creating 500 mW of power, roughly equal to that of a coal plant. Of course, it's drastically reduces greenhouse emissions, poses no threat of meltdown or significant radiation pollution, and it's byproduct is Helium...not radioactive waste. The reactor is scheduled to go online in France in 2019. Depending on its success the team may go on to build a much larger reactor by 2040, but first they need to make hot fusion economically viable.

     Although it takes only 35-thousands of an ounce of tritium and deuterium to make the equivalent energy of 2,000 gallons of oil, the isotopes do not occurr naturally in the environment. Thus, they need to be made, which can be expensive since they're not in high demand (though should fusion become the energy answer of the future, they soon will). Likewise with tritium, the isotope can be made fairly easily with neutrons form a traditional fission reaction, but there is not much demand and no apparatus for delivering them. Ultimately, a fusion reactor will need to produce its own hydrogen isotopes.

     One of the more pressing concerns right now is that the actual tokamak endures incredible amounts of radiation and heat, which wear down internal parts that need to be replaced. However, because of the radioactive levels, scientists can not work inside the tokamak and must develop robots capable of replacing those parts, some of which weigh in excess of 10 tons.

     Despite the obstacles, the ITER team has been impressive in the global outreach and campaign for support. They see this as an investment for all humankind, one of the few projects like it that has retained such a pristine, a-political image. I first heard about ITER at an assembly for the National Education Association, where they were promoting their project and providing teachers with classroom materials for educating students on ITER and hot fusion reactions. Clearly the organization has an eye on the future, and it isn't just toward developing fusion energy, but toward the future generations that will need it.

 

Lovotics: Engineering Robots Capable of Feeling Love

How "Lovotics" enginners are attempting to give robots fuzzy feelings too

     Artificial Intelligence, more commonly known as AI, has been a pop-culture fascination for years now, even decades. One of the central arguments in the development of AI is how, or even if, a robot can be programmed to feel authentic human emotions. Well, the authenticity part may be debatable, but self-described "Lovotics" engineers at the National University of Singapore are attempting to build robots capable of creating a human-robot bond of love, both psychologically and biologically.

     Researchers and engineers have attempted to recreate something of a robotic neural network that mimics, biologically speaking, that of humans. Complete with dopamine, seratonin, and oxytocin to name a few are all simulated in this neural network, the map of which is based on MRI scans of actual human neural pathways. The ultimate product is a robot that has some semblance of psychology and can "feel" affection, or disaffection, for a human counterpart. This affection is largely created through a single interface analgous with that of human interaction; touching. Depending on how a human counterpart touches the robot, it will feel jealous, bored, angry, happy or, as the engineers insist, love. Of course, neglecting these lovebots would have their own consequences as well.

48txxlf0OF4

     It seems to me that more than an emotion, these Lovotics engineers are creating a disposition within the robots; as if affection for certain human targets is measured on a spectrum from love to hate (rather than a fine line), and they react accordingly to touch interface. In humans, emotions are much more nebulous, often manifesting in strange ways not because of the inner workings of our endocrine system but because we find a multitude of triggers in very common experiences. I may react hatefully to someone that I care deeply about because I feel offended, or because I'm pushing them away for one reason or another. In addition, I may react lovably to some that I loathe, simply because I want something from them or because I have an agenda. (For more information ont hese kinds of interactions read Machiavelli's The Prince) Granted, we have social and ethical codes for these kinds of (mis)behavior, but nonetheless there are constant deviations from our emotional center.

     Regardless, this is a pretty innovative approach to creating an emotional "self" in robots and the implications are equally large. Religious, philosophical, and existential questions abound whenever anyone attempts to invest a inanimate thing (or even a non-human animated thing for evangelicals) with the characteristics of a spiritual being. This is evidenced in the volume (mostly rambling) of comments on PopSci, where this topic originally broke.

     It is unassailably cool that there may be some kind of Skywalker-R2D2 burgeoning relationships in the near future. I envision a scenario where my smartphone is stolen and the thief is made to feel like an asshole by a very uncooperative voice that sounds something like Kit from Knight Rider. Of course, there are inevitable lovebot correlations to lonely guys in small apartments seeking android companions ala Cherry 2000, the 1980's sci-fi blunder. Whatever the ultimate outcome of these Lovotics engineered lovebots, we're likely not to see anything commercial for some time, and even then I doubt we'll be conversing with C3PO so much as poking and petting at beeping, whirring toasters.

Cicada FAQ

Where we live, the steady, annoying hum of the cicada is finally dwindling to a low murmur, but for a few weeks it was so loud we couldn’t even hear our own music inside the house. Sure, they’re only here every thirteen years, and by the time they come again we’ve already forgotten that they existed in the first place; I told my five-year-old that by the time they come again, it will be a complete surprise for her, as surely she won’t remember them. But boy are they annoying.

Even as they slowly fade out, they still interrupt our lives quite a bit. From drowning out outdoor plays to hitting us stupidly in the back as if they’re bad drivers careening out of control in the air, they’re a bloody nuisance—and while I would normally advocate any insect’s right to live as much as we do, they are about as wonderful to have around as mosquitoes. Thankfully, we won’t have to deal with them for too long!

In fact, just in case you were wondering, here are a few facts about the cicadas—and just how long we’ll have to deal with them.

  • Most of them have a lifespan of around six weeks, and they mate after they die; so once they’ve all mated we can expect them to leave us alone. Once they are gone, however, the annual cicadas will come out to play!
  • Once they leave, we’ll also have their dead, red-eyed bodies all around us like a post-apocalyptic bug mess, and they are supposed to stink like it, too.
  • Insecticides don’t work well on cicadas, so don’t bother to buy any just for them. (We even tried with some spray to verify this claim; it’s true! Some died but it sure didn’t change the magnitude of the sound.)
  • Mesh netting and other preventative devices are pretty much a waste of time, too.
  • Cicadas are not harmful to humans and generally do not bite. However, they can sometimes bite if they land on an arm or leg and mistake it for a tree—so be sure to shake them off if they do land on exposed skin.
  • The name cicada comes from the Latin language and translates to “tree grasshopper.”
  • That awful noise they make is their mating call—a sound that the males make to attract females, who actually think it quite nice.
  • Once the mating is complete, the female cicada will lay her eggs in a tree. She can lay up to thousands of them.
  • Once the eggs hatch, the cicada nymphs fall to the ground and burrow until they are ready to emerge, shed their skin, and mate as their parents did.
  • Most species remain underground for only two to five years. Others can last longer—such as the ones plaguing us now, or even the 17-year cicada.
  • They aren’t just sleeping underground; the nymphs actually dig a lot, and drink root juice to survive.

J. Michael Bailey's no stranger to pissing people off

J. Michael Bailey made headlines in March for his controversial sex toy demonstration at Northwestern University. If you don’t remember, there was a huge public outcry from students and the media and Bailey later apologized. This is not the first time Bailey’s behavior and work has caused uproar. Working under the umbrella of human sexuality, Bailey most commonly studies homosexuality, transsexuality and arousal patterns, publishing a number of potentially offensive articles and books. Here’s a little more about Mr. Bailey’s controversial psychological history:

--Twin studies. Bailey wanted to see if sexuality was genetic.  In the early 1990’s, Bailey, along with Richard Pillard, designed an experiment to see how often twins had the same sexual orientation, searching for a “gay gene.” He called for twins and siblings in the newspaper. Among identical twins, 52% had the same sexual orientation, fraternal twins, 22%, adoptive and biological siblings of the same sex, 11%.

--Sex typical and atypical behavior in homosexuals. Bailey’s studies have argued that homosexual men and women recall being more gender nonconforming children than their heterosexual counterparts. Bailey’s studies have been called into question because there is a difference between what people remember about their childhoods, especially when they are homosexual adults and predisposed to certain perceptions of themselves, than what actually took place during their childhoods. 

--Homosexual choice.  Bailey has said that he thinks it’s morally acceptable for parents to choose their children’s sexual orientation, if there were methods to do so.  He doesn’t advocate for killing gay kids or aborting gay fetuses, just changing the gay gene when and if it becomes possible to isolate it. 

--Male bisexuality does not exist.  Bailey’s studies show that men’s genital arousal was consistent with their sexual orientation, but women’s was not. He found that men were particularly influenced by female-only erotic stimuli, followed by heterosexual stimuli, but were not influenced by homosexual imagery.  Alternately, women of all sexual orientations were equally stimulated by homosexual and heterosexual stimuli. In this same fell swoop, Bailey discredited male bisexuality.  Bailey studied men’s penile arousal to sexual stimuli.  75% of bisexually identified men were only aroused by homosexual images and 25% were only aroused by heterosexual images—no men were aroused by both images equally.

--Transsexual women. In 2003, Bailey published the highly controversial book, The Man Who Would Be Queen.  He makes two predominant claims about the nature of transsexual women in the book. The first is that transsexual women are gay men who underwent sexual reassignment surgery to have sex with more men. The second is that transsexual men are really only attracted to themselves as they would be if they were women.  In essence, transsexual women transition because they can better get off when they look like women.  The transsexual women Bailey used as research in this book claimed severe research misconduct.  Under pressure, Bailey stepped down as chair of the psychology department at Northwestern in 2004, but remained a professor at the university.   

J. Michael Bailey is no stranger to controversy. In fact, based on his recent exploits, it seems like he thrives on it.  There’s no way he thinks that he’s really going to get away with orgasms in class and saying transsexuals are only attracted to themselves without pissing people off.  

Darwin's "Origin of Species" affected a lot more arenas than only science

Today I had a pseudo-debate about evolution with a group of tenth graders.  They asked me how I could not believe in God, wondered why I thought people were the babies of monkeys, were concerned about my apparently intimate knowledge of fish people. Sigh.  Needless to say, in the 21st century, we still don’t get it.  But our discussion got me thinking, how did the world react—read, freak out—when Darwin’s theory of evolution was published in the first place?  In a nutshell, here’s what happened:

Thought

-Most Victorian thinkers believed that Darwin’s idea of “survival of the fittest” wasn’t based on random selection based on a species’ adaptability to its environment. Instead, they often believed a species survival was based on a species being innately superior and evolved based on a greater universal plan.

Writing

-Pre-Darwin, Romantic writers dealt with how man, God, and Nature would be united. They didn’t address God’s concern for man, instead they believed in a God or higher power that valued and had a larger plan for man. After Darwin, Victorian writers had to concern themselves with making man human and helping him overcome his animal nature. Writers had to question whether man knew anything about God, his world or himself.

-Even the idea of pantheism-- God in everything and everything is God—was blasted to smithereens because Victorians believed Darwin took God out of the random evolution of the universe.

-Victorians, with God, religion, and faith removed, were the first writers to have to define man as a separate entity from animals.

Religion

-The Christian ideal that an all-knowing creator crafted man and his universe had to be overturned in favor of a universe based on randomness and chance—Darwin’s natural selection that said the survivor was randomly best suited for his environment

-There were two theories which “evolved” from Darwin’s theories called “naturalism” and “positivism,”—both of these forms of thought restricted thought and study to things which can be critically observed and experimented upon.

-Thomas Henry Huxley created Agnosticism in 1869 in response to science leaving the supernatural out of the equation. He said that “doubt is a beneficent demon” because if people doubt things, then they can err without fault

--Rather than believing fact as the ultimate truth, the agnostic believes in questioning these perceived truths. This doubt in facts leaves room for a God or a higher power in the universe.

-Agnosticism, and it’s religion of “doubt,” intruded onto all subjects, making it hard for Victorian thinkers to trust anything.

Feminism

-The idea of “Variation Under Domestication” illustrated the idea of resemblances between two different creatures caused by the same evolutionary reaction to an environment.

-Domestic life allowed women less variation in their lives than what they were capable.

-Victorian feminists believed that the changing of species was related to the spiritual change within a population as well as the external change.

Darwinism and evolution affected everything in Victorian England, it seems.  And why wouldn’t it? It seems that people then, and now, have used evolution to fit their particular realms of experience and points of view. Or pretended it never existed.

 

 

Tell Psychology Today to Atone for Their Racism

Have you heard about all of this ridiculousness coming from Psychology Today? First the publication made the outrageous statement that Black women are physically less attractive than other women (as a fact, not some stupid opinion); then, after a widespread public outcry over the obnoxious piece (including hundreds of thousands of petition signers against the author, Dr. Satoshi Kanazawa, as well as the teacher’s students demanding their professor’s immediate resignation), they offered a half-hearted apology two weeks later.

Psychology Today said they were sorry for the pain and suffering they caused, said that the blog post was taken down, and that they don’t tolerate racism and prejudice. Most people are saying that their lukewarm apology is not enough to address the pseudoscience they’ve allowed to run on their blog. To read the apology in full, and to see what else activists are saying it lacks, click here. You can also ask the publication to do better at the website.

Change.org is calling for the publication to do much more to atone for their blog, including publishing articles that debunk scientific racism and dismissing Dr. Kanazawa as basically an idiot. That’s all well and good, but the damage is done—and I’m seeing websites (such as the first link above) not only treat the article as more than rubbish, but an actual piece to be debated—and then offer other reasons than the doctor’s why Black woman might be considered less attractive! To give this piece an ounce of credibility rather than dismissing it for the bull it is, is simply outrageous.

I’m not saying we should ignore the article, but we should definitely point fingers at it and laugh and/or snarl, rather than offer actual scientific commentary and argumentation for or against it. In no way should we be acknowledging this drivel as actual science. So shame on you, too, blogosphere, for giving the piece—and Dr. Kanazawa—an ounce of credibility that neither deserve.

The Bees are Making a Comeback!

Like many other Americans, I worry about the decline of the bees. Einstein said we wouldn’t survive without them, and I believe that. Every time I see the hummingbird feeder on our front porch swimming with little dead bees who were suckered into drinking the nectar, I feel like a murderer—like me wanting to attract hummingbirds has a direct effect on the universe!

Maybe it does. A butterfly’s wings, and all of that.

But there is also some good news regarding honeybees—at least, in some areas. In California, the bee populations are considered the highest they’ve been in about seven years right now, which not only helps us humans, but also boosts the economy in California.

Apparently bees account for billions of dollars for the California economy—making it the beekeeping lifestyle a pretty lucrative career. I wonder how much is involved in the industry here in the Midwest? It could definitely be worth checking out. We could definitely use the extra income, with my husband being laid off and all. It would also be educational for my daughter, as long as she’s not allergic or anything.

And then I wouldn’t feel so guilty about that damn bird feeder…

Fukushima: Design Flaws in the Cooling Vents


 

The United States needs to take heed of the lessons learned at Fukushima in order to avoid another disaster of similar proportions happening on our own soil. According to the NYT, the failures at Fukushima were not only related to the delayed use of the cooling vents in the nuclear reactor, but to possible design flaws within the cooling vents themselves.

 

In the aftermath of the Tsunami, the workers at Fukushima attempted to use the GE-built cooling vents, but were unable to do so because of mechanical failures and design flaws associated with the cooling vents. If the workers had been able to use the cooling vents, the reactor would have still been likely to release radiation, but not at the same high levels.

 

Part of the problem with the cooling vents stems from the fact that the workers could not manually turn on the cooling vents because of the dangerous levels of radiation at the time they were finally directed to do so. At that time, the workers were unable to turn on the cooling vents from a distance.

 

The failures within the cooling system are likely to have caused the hydrogen blasts and melted the fuel rods at Fukushima, which in turn caused the high level of radiation to be released.

 

The problem facing the United States is that most nuclear reactors in the United States use the same cooling vents as Japan used in the Fukushima nuclear reactor. While the damage to the cooling vents may have been caused by the earthquake, it’s possible that other natural disasters may cause damage to the cooling vents at US nuclear reactors or that the design flaws themselves were the cause of the failure with the cooling vents. The GE-made cooling vents were designed to be able to withstand more pressure than the previous cooling vents.

 

A major design flaw of the cooling vents is that some of the special features in the cooling vents require electricity to work; if there isn’t any electricity because of a natural disaster, the cooling vents won’t function without a generator.

 

Another problem with cooling vents design that nuclear experts question is whether or not to design the cooling vents to provide for containment, which has zero radiation, or to design the cooling vents in a way which provides more emergency scenario precautions. In the latter case, the nuclear generators will still release some radiation, which is why some experts question this type of design.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Robot Boat to Sail the Seas of Titan

New project seeks support to research potential life on Saturn's moon

As a writer, I can’t get enough of science stories that both fascinate intellectually and stir the creative imagination. When I learned there were diamond oceans with solid diamond icebergs on Neptune and Uranus, my brain went crazy at trying to imagine them. It seems the universe is filled to the brim with scenes whose beauty we can only imagine. The scientific study of planets other than our own not only helps us understand the physical universe, it brings new and strange ideas to the collective human imagination.

Space engineers are now working on the first ever robot boat. It would be shipped off to sail the seas of Titan, the biggest of Saturn’s moons. The potentially NASA-funded Titan Mare Explorer project (TiME) has scientists from Open University and Proxemy Research on board. The goal of the project is to build a probe and then jettison it to Titan on a billion-mile journey. Once landed on the surface, the probe would collect data on one of Titan’s methane and ethane seas. The scientists on the TiME team seek to discover the exact chemical composition of the Ligeia Mare sea that the robot boat would explore. The probe will wield a mass spectrometer to figure out what the lake is made from. It will also record the depth of the sea, the size of its waves, and other variables.

Scientists believe there may be life forms hidden deep within Titan. Surface organic chemicals may trickle down into underground oceans to form living organisms. As Saturn and its moons lie so far away from earth, we have little knowledge so far of what may lurk inside Titan. The project could provide valuable insight as to how worlds with different chemical compositions from our own function.

The project’s proposed scenario sounds like something out of a science fiction novel. A robotic ship sails the chemical seas in search of alien life. TiME may still be in its early stages of development, but it could yield fascinating results as to the secrets of our solar system. While we’re probably the most intelligent beings in discernable proximity, we may not be the only form of life hiding out in our eight-planet system.

The heads of the project are considerably excited that it is making headway in securing funding. These scientists sound like cool dudes, experts devoted to the discovery of the universe around us while not taking everything quite so seriously. The Guardian got the following sound bite from Professor John Zarnecki of Open University: "Waves on Titan's seas will be far larger, but much slower, than on earthly oceans, according to our calculations. That suggests Titan is the best spot in the solar system for surfing. The only trouble is that the temperature there is -180C (-290F).” Maybe his next mission will be launching an insulated surfing capsule. I love the way scientists talk about projects like this one. You get the sense that in certain ways they’re still little kids gazing up at the night sky and dreaming about aliens and spaceships. Becoming a top researcher in space engineering may be a serious endeavor, but that doesn’t mean you have to lose your sense of humor about it. Besides, when facing the prospect of discovering new life on alien worlds, what reasons are there not to be excited?

(via The Guardian UK)

Alexis Carrel has been called a Nazi-sympathizer, the father of tissue culture

Alexis Carrel has been called many things: a Nazi-sympathizer, a quack, the greatest scientist alive.  The French scientist was a Nobel Prize winner in Physiology or Medicine, but also likely falsified much of his sensationalized “chicken heart” research for many years.  Whether he was a brilliant man or a crackpot, in one way or another Carrel set the exclamatory tone used by the press and the general public regarding tissue culture experiments, and other science experiments, for decades to come. 

Carrel was born in 1873 in Sainte-Foy-les-Lyon in France.  He earned two baccalaureate degrees in letters and science before beginning his medical studies at the University of Lyons in 1891. As an apprentice in Leo Testut’s, a famous anatomist, laboratory, Carrel showed promise in dissection and surgery.

Carrel’s earliest work involved blood vessel sutures. During the time Carrel was working, surgeons did not know how to properly repair blood vessels. Most famously, in 1894, the president of France bled to death after being wounded by an assassin.  Carrel taught himself to sew with a small needle and silk thread on a piece of paper.  He then used a trial-and-error method to minimize the risk of infection. His strides in this arena were outstanding.

It was then that Carrel started to become a sort of separatist with the rest of the medical community.  He wrote an article about a miracle he witnessed at a Roman Catholic shrine, saying that there were miracles in medicine that could not be explained by science alone.

Moving to the United States, Carrel gained confidence that he could perform blood transfusion and organ transplantation based on his success with suturing blood vessels.  He performed successful kidney transplants on dogs and in 1906, was invited to work for the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research in New York City, a facility created solely for medical research.

For his continued advancement in the field of vessel suture and blood transfusions, Carrel was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1912.

Because of his success with tissue culturing, Carrel began to think that he might be able to keep human tissue and organs alive artificially in a laboratory, hoping that eventually these might be used as replacement for diseased or damaged human organs.  One such experiment was his so-called “chicken heart” experiment.  Carrel took tissue from a chicken embryo’s heart and kept it alive for thirty-four years.

Newspapers grabbed onto and sensationalized the story, saying that the chicken’s heart was growing and throbbing.  The World Telegram newspaper wrote about the chicken heart’s birthday each year. 

He designed a sterilizing glass pump in the 1930’s that could be used for growing organs kept in the lab. He and the aviator Charles A. Lindbergh appeared on the cover of TIME magazine in 1935 holding their so-called mechanical heart.

In 1941, Carrel returned home to France to direct the Foundation for the Study of Human Problems in Paris. In 1944, after the Allies reoccupied France and restored the French government, Carrel was suspended and accused of collaborating with the Germans.

Ironically, before trial, Carrel had a heart attack and died of heart failure. So, Carrel, with his radical views and unconventional research, was never able to clear his name one way or the other.

 
Sources and further reading:

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/redgold/innovators/bio_carrel.html

http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1912/carrel-bio.html

Pages