Monthly Archives: September 2010

Geoengineering and nanotechnology at the University of Calgary

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University of Calgary climate scientist David Keith suggests two ways to engineer the climate to avoid dangerous warming. According to the news item on Nanowerk,

“Releasing engineered nano-sized disks, or sulphuric acid in a condensable vapour above the Earth, are two novel approaches. These approaches offer advantages over simply putting sulphur dioxide gas into the atmosphere,” says David Keith, a director in the Institute for Sustainable Energy, Environment and Economy and a Schulich School of Engineering professor.

Keith, a global leader in investigating this topic, says that geoengineering, or engineering the climate on a global scale, is an imperfect science.

“It cannot offset the risks that come from increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. If we don’t halt man-made CO2 emissions, no amount of climate engineering can eliminate the problems – massive emissions reductions are still necessary.”

Nevertheless, Keith believes that research on geoengineering technologies,their effectiveness and environmental impacts needs to be expanded.

“I think the stakes are simply too high at this point to think that ignorance is a good policy.”

… One study was authored by Keith alone, and the other with scientists in Canada, the U.S. and Switzerland.

Keith is talking about engineering the nanoparticles as thin disks whose electric or magnet materials would allow them to be levitated into the atmosphere and oriented to reflect the most solar radiation away from us. For example, if the particles could be engineered to drift towards the Poles (North and South), solar radiation could be reduced.  There’s more detail about this and his other suggestion in the news item.

Keith does note that these suggestions do not mean we should stop our efforts at curtailing greenhouse gas emissions,

Keith stresses that whether geoengineering technology is ever used, it shouldn’t be seen as a reason not to reduce man-made greenhouse gas emissions now accumulating in the atmosphere.

“Seat belts reduce the risk of being injured in accidents. But having a seat belt doesn’t mean you should drive drunk at 100 miles an hour,” he says.

ETA Sept. 13, 2010: Andrew Maynard at 2020 Science has posted about one of David Keith’s geoengineering ideas:

The first [aspect of the paper to catch Andrew’s eye] was that he [Keith] proposes engineering particles as disks a few micrometers wide and around 50 nanometers thick, that are designed to automatically congregate where they are most useful in the atmosphere – in other words, this is a beautiful case of nanotechnology meets geoengineering.

The second aspect of the paper that caught my attention was that I was working with precisely engineered particles not too dissimilar from those that David described back in the 1990′s, which got me wondering whether techniques being used then for fabrication of silicon particles could be used for the more complex particles being proposed here.

If you’re interested in how science develops and the history of ideas (special emphasis on nanotechnology and geoengineering) then, Andrew offers a very engaging view.

Mongoliad launch

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I made mention of the Mongoliad writing project when it was first announced in late spring (my May 31, 2010 posting). The project features Neal Stepheonson and Greg Bear, both well known science fiction writers (in fact, both have written novels that incorporate nanotechnology), amongst a cast of other writers, artists, techno types, and others. They’re forging into 21st century publishing with a model that is lifted in part from the 19th century, stories produced serially and available by subscription, but made available with contemporary technology, the interrnet. I guess you could call it ‘steam punk publishing’.

Last week, a free preview was made available and registration was opened. Here’s the view from Andrew Leonard at Salon.com,

Behold the power of branding! Chapter I of “The Mongoliad” launched online this week, and I plunked down $9.99 for a year’s subscription, sight unseen, simply because Neal Stephenson’s name was attached. …

But after spending some time with the site and reading the first chapter, it is not exactly clear to me exactly how much Stephenson is baked into this project. He is the co-founder and chairman of Subutai, the start-up that is producing “The Mongoliad.” But the content-creation is a group effort. This serial digital novel is being produced online by a team of writers , artists, hackers and sword-fighting geeks — another big name involved is Greg Bear, also a veteran science fiction author. …

“The Mongoliad” is supposed to be more than “just” a book. Eventually the intention is to incorporate multimedia offerings, along with the hypertext-branching contributions of a user community extending far beyond the core team.

Leonard goes on to express his hope that Mongoliad will be a grand adventure. He really is a Stephenson fan and seems to be genuinely looking forward to reading this experiment in publishing/social media enhancing/serializing a novel. Kit Eaton at Fast Company (Neal Stephenson’s Novel-Redefining Novel, “The Mongoliad,” Launches, Online)  is another fan,

Ghengis Khan shook up the world in the 12th Century, and now in the 21st Century Neal Stephenson’s novel about him may shake up the publishing world: It’s partly interactive, partly social media, and wholly digital.

The Mongoliad promises to be unlike any other book ever written. For starters it’s written, in part, by Neal Stephenson, whose ideas in earlier novels like Snow Crash and The Diamond Age have contributed to many modern marvels like Google Earth and augmented reality. When you learn sci-fi writer Greg Bear is contributing to the team effort too, it makes the whole thing even more promising.

The innovation in The Mongoliad isn’t in its team writing effort, however: It’s in the entire concept of a serialized, dynamic, digital “book” that includes video, imagery, music, and background articles among the text of the storyline and comes with a social media companion, with which fans/readers can comment and interact.

In fact it looks as if they are incorporating fan fiction into their overall plan. If you go to the Mongoliad website, you are encouraged to add your stories and artwork to the site.  This is from their ‘terms of service’,

Contributor Submissions

1. Policy. We welcome the submission of text, stories, vignettes, paragraphs, concepts, characters, ideas, poems, songs, images, animations, or interactive features submitted by registered contributors for potential publication on the Site (“Contributor Submissions”). Subutai grants you a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable and revocable license to modify, broadcast, and transmit Content solely in order to create and submit Contributor Submissions to Subutai.

You understand that whether or not such Contributor Submissions are published, Subutai cannot guarantee proper attribution with respect to any submissions because of the interactive nature of the Site.

It’ll be interesting to see whether or not this works purely from the perspective of its business model. As for the story itself, I’m not loving it so far.  First, a précis. It’s the thirteenth century in Europe and the Mongolians have a conquered a chunk of it. (Apparently, they did conquer a good chunk by 1241 and were about to conquer the rest when Ögedei Khan, then current Mongol ruler, died and their general,  Subitai, according to custom had to return to Mongolis.  See: Wikipedia essay)

In Mongoliad, there is no withdrawal of the Mongol forces and they are poised to sweep Europe meanwhile a small band of European knights gather to fight (from the Mongoliad Welcome page),

It’s spring of 1241, and the West is shitting its pants (that’s “bewraying its kecks” for you medieval time-travelers).

The Mongol takeover of Europe is almost complete. The hordes commanded by the sons of Genghis Khan have swept out of their immense grassy plains and ravaged Russia, Poland, and Hungary… and now seem poised to sweep west to Paris and south to Rome. King and pope and peasant alike face a bleak future—until a small band of warriors, inheritors of a millennium-old secret tradition, set out to probe the enemy.

Their leader, the greatest knight of their order, will set his small group of specially trained warriors on a perilous eastern journey. They will be guided by an agile, elusive, and sharp-witted adolescent girl, who believes the master’s plan is insane. But this small band is the West’s last, best hope to turn aside the floodtide of the violent genius of the Steppes kingdoms.

In the preview chapter (which is free), we meet Haakon who’s obviously one of the small band of warriors fighting for Europe. At this point,  he’s engaging in some sort of sword fighting duel in a Mongol arena while the crowds roar for blood.  We never learn much more about him or any of the other characters we’re introduced to as the preview is designed to draw us into buying a subscription so we can find out more.  I’m not a big fan of the writing that I see in the preview,

Haakon wanted to roar with anger, but it came out as a strangled laugh. “I am about to do battle with a demon,” he complained, “and you want me to–”

“It’s no demon,” Brother Rutger said, and spat on the loose ocher ground that had been tracked down the tunnel on the boots of surviving combatants. “It’s a man dressed as one.” He rammed the helm down onto Haakon’s head and slapped him on the ass. Even through surcoat, chain mail, gambeson, and drawers, the impact came through solidly. “Oh yes,” he added, “and the Red Veil. We would also like to know what is on the other side.”

Haakon grunted as he adjusted the helmet to suit him. The mysterious Veil. He might have seen it several weeks ago when a group led by the physician Raphael had been sent to retrieve Illarion, the ailing Ruthenian.

Now, their party had divided again, and Feronantus and his team were off on their secret mission–while Haakon and the rest of the Shield-Brethren remained to compete against the champions of the Mongol Empire.

Rutger put his hand on Haakon’s shoulder. They regarded each other silently. Saying goodbye would be worse than useless, since Rutger and the others would see it as a premature admission of defeat, and it might demoralize them. Haakon knew he would be back among them in less time than it took to run out to the gutter and take a shit.

I also have some questions about the politics of it all. Here are a couple pictures from the site, Haakon first,

Art by Jamie Jones (from Mongoliad site)

And here’s one of the two Mongolian thug images currently available,

Concept art from Aleksi Briclot (from Mongoliad site)

This is just the beginning of the series and I’m hoping they head away from seems to be a pretty standard storyline where pretty, blond, white people struggle and eventually turn the tide against a demonic, dark-haired and darker-skinned people.

Syn Bio: survey of US public opinion report and webcast

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Thursday, Sept. 9, 2010 is the day that the Synthetic Biology Project (associated with the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars) will be releasing a report on its 2010 survey of public opinion about synthetic biology in the wake of J. Craig Venter’s May 2010 announcement (my May 21, 2010 posting) about creating the first synthetic bacterial cell. You can attend a live event in Washington, DC. (RSVP please) or view the live webcast at 9:30 am PT.

From the Synthetic Biology Project website,

For the fifth year in a row, Peter D. Hart Research, in collaboration with the Science and Technology Innovation Program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, conducted a representative national telephone survey to gauge public awareness of, and attitudes towards, emerging science and technologies.

Join us on Thursday, September 9, 2010, at 12:30 p.m. for the results from the latest poll.

Memristor update

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HP Labs is making memristor news again. From a news item on physorg.ocm,

HP is partnering with Korean memory chip maker Hynix Semiconductor Inc. to make chips that contain memristors. Memristors are a newly discovered building block of electrical circuits.

HP built one in 2008 that confirmed what scientists had suspected for nearly 40 years but hadn’t been able to prove: that circuits have a weird, natural ability to remember things even when they’re turned off.

I don’t remember the story quite that way, i.e.,  “confirmed what scientists had suspected for nearly 40 years” as I recall the theory that R. Stanley William (the HP Labs team leader) cites  is from Dr. Leon Chua circa 1971 and was almost forgotten. (Unbeknownst to Dr. Chua, there was a previous theorist in the 1960s who posited a similar notion which he called a memistor. See Memistors, Memristors, and the Rise of Strong Artificial Intelligence, an article by Blaise Mouttet, for a more complete history. ETA: There’s additional material from Blaise at http://www.neurdon.com/)

There’s more about HP Labs and its new partner at BBC News in an article by Jason Palmer,

Electronics giant HP has joined the world’s second-largest memory chip maker Hynix to manufacture a novel member of the electronics family.

The deal will see “memristors” – first demonstrated by HP in 2006 [I believe it was 2008] – mass produced for the first time.

Memristors promise significantly greater memory storage requiring less energy and space, and may eventually also be employed in processors.

HP says the first memristors should be widely available in about three years.

If you follow the link to the story, there’s also a brief BBC video interview with Stanley Williams.

My first 2010 story on the memristor is here and later, there’s an interview I had with Forrest H Bennet III who argues that the memristor is not a fourth element (in addition to the capacitor, resistor, and inductor) but is in fact part of an infinite table of circuit elements.

ETA: I have some additional information from the news release on the HP Labs website,

HP today announced that it has entered into a joint development agreement with Hynix Semiconductor Inc., a world leader in the manufacture of computer memory, to bring memristor technology to market.

Memristors represent a fourth basic passive circuit element. They existed only in theory until 2006 – when researchers in HP Labs’ Information and Quantum Systems Laboratory (IQSL) first intentionally demonstrated their existence.

Memory chips created with memristor technology have the potential to run considerably faster and use much less energy than Flash memory technologies, says Dr. Stanley Williams, HP Senior Fellow and IQSL founding Director.

“We believe that the memristor is a universal memory that over time could replace Flash, DRAM, and even hard drives,” he says.

Uniting HP’s world-class research and IP with a first-rate memory manufacturer will allow high-quality, memristor-based memory to be developed quickly and on a mass scale, Williams adds.

Also, the video interview with Dr. Williams is on youtube and is not a BBC video as I believed. So here’s the interview,

Painting whisperers: McGill University scientists develop photoacoustic technique for art restoration

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Listening to a paint pigment to determine its composition is a new technique for art restoration that scientists at McGill University (Montréal, Canada) have developed. From the news release,

A team of McGill chemists have discovered that a technique known as photoacoustic infrared spectroscopy could be used to identify the composition of pigments used in art work that is decades or even centuries old. Pigments give artist’s materials colour, and they emit sounds when light is shone on them.

“The chemical composition of pigments is important to know, because it enables museums and restorers to know how the paints will react to sunlight and temperature changes,” explained Dr. Ian Butler, lead researcher and professor at McGill’s Department of Chemistry. Without a full understanding of the chemicals involved in artworks, preservation attempts can sometimes lead to more damage than would occur by just simply leaving the works untreated.

Photoacoustic infrared spectroscopy is based on Alexander Graham Bell’s 1880 discovery that showed solids could emit sounds when exposed to sunlight, infrared radiation or ultraviolet radiation. Advances in mathematics and computers have enabled chemists to apply the phenomenon to various materials, but the Butler’s team is the first to use it to analyze typical inorganic pigments that most artists use.

The researchers have classified 12 historically prominent pigments by the infrared spectra they exhibit – i.e., the range of noises they produce – and they hope the technique will be used to establish a pigment database. “Once such a database has been established, the technique may become routine in the arsenal of art forensic laboratories,” Butler said. The next steps will be to identify partners interested in developing standard practices that would enable this technique to be used with artwork.

Strictly speaking this is not usually in my bailiwick but art restoration does interest me and there’s been a fair amount of interest in using nanotechnology-enabled techniques to minimize the damage that art restoration paradoxically imposes as conservators try to save the art work. There is a blog for the restoration of Van Gogh’s The Bedroom (no nano-enabled techniques) which is taking place at the Van Gogh Museum (first mentioned here in my March 16, 2010 posting).

Women in nanoscience and other sciences too

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Last week, three women were honoured for their work in nanoscience with  L’Oréal Singapore for Women in Science Fellowships (from the news item on Nanowerk),

In its second year, the Fellowships is organised with the support of the Singapore National Commission for UNESCO and in partnership with the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR). The Fellowships aim to recognise the significant contribution of talented women to scientific progress, encourage young women to pursue science as a career and promote their effective participation in the scientific development of Singapore.

…

The three outstanding women were awarded fellowships worth S$20,000 to support them in their doctorate or post-doctorate research. This year’s National Fellows are:

– Dr. Low Hong Yee, 2010 L’Oréal Singapore For Women in Science National Fellow and Senior Scientist at A*STAR’s Institute of Materials Research and Engineering. Her work in nanoimprint technology, an emerging technique in nanotechnology, focuses on eco solutions and brings to reality the ability to mimic and apply on synthetic surfaces the structure found in naturally occurring exteriors or skin such as the iridescent colours of a butterfly’s wings or the water-proofing of lotus leaves. This new development offers an eco-friendly, non-chemical method to improve the properties and functionalities of common plastic film.

– Dr. Madhavi Srinivasan, 2010 L’Oréal Singapore For Women in Science National Fellow and Assistant Professor at the Nanyang Technological University. Dr Srinivasan seeks to harness the power of nanoscale materials for the answer to the future of energy storage. Such technologies are vital for the future of a clean energy landscape. Its applications include powering electric vehicles, thus reducing overall CO2 emission, and reducing global warming or enhancing renewable energy sources (solar/wind), thus reducing pollution and tapping on alternative energy supplies.

– Dr. Yang Huiying, 2010 L’Oréal Singapore For Women in Science National Fellow and Assistant Professor at Singapore University of Technology and Design. Dr Yang’s fascination with the beauty of the nano-world prompted her research into the fabrication of metal oxide nanostructures, investigation of their optical properties, and the development of nanophotonics devices. These light emitting devices will potentially be an answer to the need for energy-saving and lower cost display screens, LED bulbs, TV and DVD players etc.

This announcement reminded me of a question I occasionally ask myself, why aren’t there more women mentioned prominently in the nanotechnology/nanoscience narratives? There are a few (the ones I’ve heard of are from the US: Christine Peterson/Foresight Institute; Mildred Dresselhaus, advisor to former US Pres. Bill Clinton; Kristen Kulinowski/Rice University and the Good Nano Guide, please let me know of any others that should be added to this list) just not as many as I would have expected.

On a somewhat related note, there was this blog post by one of the co-authors of the article, The Internet as a resource and support network for diverse geoscientists, which focused largely on women,

In the September issue of GSA Today, you can find our article on The Internet as a resource and support network for diverse geoscientists. We wrote the article with with the idea of reaching beyond the audience that already reads blogs (or attends education/diversity sessions at GSA), with the view that we might be able to open some eyes as to why time spent on-line reading and writing blogs and participating in Twitter might be a valuable thing for geoscientists to be doing. And, of course, we had some data to support our assertions.

…

As a white woman geoscientist in academia, I have definitely personally and professionally benefited from my blog reading and writing time. (I even have a publication to show for it!) But I would to love to hear more from minority and outside-of-academia geoscientists about what blogs, Twitter, and other internet-based forms of support could be doing to better support you. As you can see from the paragraph above, what we ended up advocating was that institutional support for blogging and blog-reading would help increase participation. We thought that, with increased participation, more minority and outside-of-academia geosciences voices would emerge, helping others find support, community, role models, and mentoring in voices similar to their own. Meanwhile those of us closer to the white/academic end of the spectrum could learn from all that a diverse geoscientist community has to offer.

The 2-page article is open access and can be found here.

Meanwhile, women in technology should be taking this tack according to an article by Allyson Kapin on the Fast Company website,

We have a rampant problem in the tech world. It’s called the blame game. Here’s how it works. You ask the question, “Why aren’t there enough women in tech or launching startups?” From some you get answers like, “Because it’s an exclusive white boys club.” But others say, “Not true! It’s because women don’t promote their expertise enough and they are more risk averse.” How can we truly address the lack of women in tech and startups and develop realistic solutions if we continue to play this silly blame game?

Yesterday, Michael Arrington of TechCrunch wrote a blog post saying, “It doesn’t matter how old you are, what sex you are, what politics you support or what color you are. If your idea rocks and you can execute, you can change the world and/or get really, stinking rich.”

That’s a nice idea and if it were true then the amount of wealthy entrepreneurs would better match our population’s racial and gender demographics. The fact remains that in 2009 angel investors dished out $17.6 billion to fund startups. Wonder how many funded startups were women-run? 9.4%, according to the 2009 angel investor report from Center for Venture Research at University of New Hampshire. And only 6% of investor money funded startups run by people of color.

Yet Arrington says it’s because women just don’t want it enough and that he is sick and tired of being blamed for it. He also says TechCrunch has “beg[ged] women to come and speak” and participate in their events and reached out to communities but many women still decline.

Unfortunately, the article is expositing two different ideas (thank you Allyson Kapin for refuting Arrington’s thesis) and not relating them to each other. First, there is a ‘blame game’ which isn’t getting anyone anywhere and there are issues with getting women to speak on technology panels.There are some good suggestions in the article for how to deal with the 2nd problem while the first problem is left to rest.

Kapin is right, the blame game doesn’t work in anyone’s favour but then we have to develop some alternatives. I have something here from Science Cheerleader which offers a stereotype-breaking approach to dealing with some of the issues that women in science confront. Meet Christine,

Meet Crhstine (image found on sciencecheerleader.com

Meet Erica,

Meet Erica (image found on sciencecheerleader.com)

One of these women is a software engineer and the other is a biomedical engineer.  Do visit Science Cheerleader to figure out which woman does what.

Changing the way women are perceived is a slow and arduous process and requires a great number of strategies along with the recognition that the strategies have to be adjusted as the nature of the prejudice/discrimination also changes in response to the strategies designed to counter it in the first place.  For example, efforts like the L’Oréal fellowships for women have been described as reverse-discrimination since men don’t have access to the awards by reason of their gender while standard fellowship programmes are open to all. It’s true the programmes are open to all but we need to use a variety of ways (finding speakers for panels, special financial awards programmes, stereotype-breaking articles, refuting an uninformed statement, etc.) to encourage greater participation by women and the members of other groups that have traditionally not been included. After all, there’s a reason why most of the prominent Nobel science prize winners  are white males and it’s not because they are naturally better at science.

Ask a museum curator today, Sept. 1, 2010

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There’s a special Twitter event called, Ask a museum curator. From the article on the Fast Company website by Jenara Nerenberg,

“The inspiration is really a frustration I guess; in the museum world you have a movement towards more open and engaging museums which is often referred to as Museum 2.0 — the idea that a museum can evolve and get better by interacting and involving the public,” says [Jim] Richardson [Sumo design company], whose design firm works mostly in the arts and creative sciences.

“In too many institutions social media is seen only as a marketing tool, and people like curators don’t seem to be given the chance or want to use this kind of digital tool to engage with the public. With Ask a Curator we are, on mass, taking Twitter out of the marketing department and putting it in the hands of curators, and at the same time giving the public the chance to hear about interesting subjects from these passionate individuals,” he continues.

Richardson has pulled together all kinds of museums (art, science, health, police, etc.) from around the world  for today.  You visit the Ask a Curator website here or if you want to view the conversations you can go here.  You do have to be a member (or join) to participate in the conversations.

ETA: Took a quick look at the convo, not too excited right now but maybe it will pick up. I was surprised at the amount of obscenity but then I wasn’t expecting to see any on this type of a feed. Who knew?