|
|
|
|
5 Tips: How to Keep Your New Year's ResolutionWhatever you resolve to do differently in 2009, vow also to develop a strategy to make it happen.Source: Livescience.com | 31 Dec 2009 | 7:03 pm Spectacular New Images Showcase Saturn's RingsNew pictures of Saturn released Tuesday reveal the ringed planet in all its splendor.Source: Livescience.com | 31 Dec 2009 | 6:33 pm Sick of Main Street, Going Green and Year-End RoundupsMany of us would now like to look ahead to what we hope will be better times.Source: Livescience.com | 31 Dec 2009 | 5:34 pm What Science Says about Enlightened SexAnother year, another batch of boring resolutions. So why not resolve to have better sex?Source: Livescience.com | 31 Dec 2009 | 2:57 pm Report: Columbia Astronauts Killed in SecondsThe tragic loss of the shuttle Columbia killed its astronaut crew in seconds, NASA says.Source: Livescience.com | 31 Dec 2009 | 2:31 pm New Columbia Accident Report to Help Astronaut SafetyLessons learned from NASA's Columbia accident will help boost astronaut safety.Source: Livescience.com | 31 Dec 2009 | 2:28 pm Future of Commercial Spaceflight Uncertain, But PromisingThe future of commercial spaceflight is uncertain, but holds promise in 2009.Source: Livescience.com | 31 Dec 2009 | 2:28 pm 5 Predictions for 2008 That (Thankfully) FailedThere are many self-described psychics who claim to see the future. How'd they do?Source: Livescience.com | 30 Dec 2009 | 9:44 pm World's Largest Dinosaur Fossil Field ClaimedA field of dinosaur bones found earlier this year in China may be the largest in the world.Source: Livescience.com | 30 Dec 2009 | 7:56 pm How to Recycle Your Christmas TreeTreecycling: It's time to recycle your Christmas tree.Source: Livescience.com | 30 Dec 2009 | 4:04 pm Longstanding Theory Of Origin Of Species In Oceans ChallengedNew evidence uncovered by oceanographers challenges one of the most long-standing theories about how species evolve in the oceans. Researchers propose that it was the climate, and its role in determining the availability of favorable oceanic habitat, that restricted the distribution of the species they studied rather than the presence of physical ocean barriers. In this new view, plankton are freely dispersed throughout the ocean but local conditions determine whether or not the species can 'take hold' and thrive.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 2 Jan 2009 | 1:00 am Weakness In Internet Security UncoveredIndependent security researchers have found a weakness in the Internet digital certificate infrastructure that allows attackers to forge certificates that are fully trusted by all commonly used web browsers.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 2 Jan 2009 | 1:00 am How Chromosomes Meet In The Dark: Switch That Turns On X Chromosome MatchmakingA research group lead by scientists at the University of Warwick has discovered the trigger that pulls together X chromosomes in female cells at a crucial stage of embryo development. This is an important mechanism as the binding together of too many of too few of a particular chromosome can cause a number of medical conditions such as Down Syndrome.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 2 Jan 2009 | 1:00 am Crystallographers Use Computers To Find New SuperconductorNew calculations predict that germanium hydride will be superconducting at relatively high temperatures, but will be easier to process than the high-temperature superconductors known up to now.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 2 Jan 2009 | 1:00 am Religion May Have Evolved Because Of Its Ability To Help People Exercise Self-controlPsychologists reveal that religion facilitates the exercise of self-control and attainment of long-term goals. A psychology professor has found a strong correlation between religion and self-control, or self-regulation. He explains that religious people may have at their disposal a set of unique resources that makes them better suited to adhering to long term goals.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 2 Jan 2009 | 1:00 am Potential Therapy For Congenital Muscular DystrophyCurrent research suggests laminin, a protein that helps cells stick together, may lead to enhanced muscle repair in muscular dystrophy.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 2 Jan 2009 | 1:00 am Structure Of Virulent Pathogen RevealedLike high-profile politicians, pathogenic bacteria dispatch advance teams to make way for their arrival. But these bacterial agents don't just secure a safe passage, as a Secret Service detail might do. Rather they are teams of molecules that bacteria inject into cells they want to colonize, sent to hijack their hosts' biochemistry to serve their master's microbial needs. These molecules -- called virulence factors -- co-opt essential cell functions including the reproduction cycle and cell structure assembly, suppressing the cells' defenses against bacterial invasion and causing disease.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 1 Jan 2009 | 7:00 pm Evidence For Protective Effect Of Fish Oil Not ConclusiveFish oil protects against deaths from heart problems, but doesn't provide a clear benefit in heart rhythm problems, according a new study.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 1 Jan 2009 | 7:00 pm Four Years After Tsunami, Coral Reefs RecoveringScientists have reported a rapid recovery of coral reefs in areas of Indonesia, following the tsunami that devastated coastal regions throughout the Indian Ocean on December 26, 2004.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 1 Jan 2009 | 7:00 pm Grape-seed Extract Kills Laboratory Leukemia Cells, Proving Value Of Natural CompoundsAn extract from grape seeds forces laboratory leukemia cells to commit cell suicide. Researchers found that within 24 hours, 76 percent of leukemia cells had died after being exposed to the extract.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 1 Jan 2009 | 7:00 pm Russia cuts off gas to Ukraine (AFP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 1 Jan 2009 | 2:10 pm The Nation's Weather (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 1 Jan 2009 | 1:04 pm Which technologies are set to change everything?"Through science we create technology and in using our new tools we recreate ourselves." So says the intro to edge.org's annual New Year challenge to the world's greatest thinkers. This year it is asking "What will change everything – What game-changing scientific ideas and developments do you expect to live to see?" And as ever, the great and the good have responded to the call. Geneticist Craig Venter, psychologist Steven Pinker, novelist Ian McEwan, philosopher Dan Dennett, physicist Paul Davies and cloning pioneer Ian Wilmut are just some of the overwhelmingly male-dominated list of more than 110 respondents. For Pinker, the exercise is doomed to fail:
Despite believing that it is impossible to predict how technology will change the world, Pinker gamely has a stab, forecasting that personal genomics will alter medicine, our understanding of "temperament and cognition" as well as insurance. Climate change, peak oil and the looming energy crisis prey on many of the contributors' minds. For McEwan, the sun holds the key:
New Scientist editor Roger Highfield plumps for another energy technology to get us out of the climate mess:
Various respondents put manipulating our bodies and brains at the heart of a big future change. The psychologist Irene Pepperberg raises the intriguing notion of being able to "understand and repair brains susceptible to addictions, or criminality", and evolutionary biologist Mark Pagel has his sights on re-engineering the human body:
Some in the list clearly did not read the Edge folks' instructions not to blow their own trumpets. "No self-promotion: referencing your own writing or books ... No selling from the stage, pushing your well-known agenda." Venter, for example, does not shy away from promoting his own work on synthetic biology:
But then again, when you are on the verge of creating new life forms, I guess it is hard to be modest. What interested you in the list? What technology or idea do you think will transform our world? guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsSource: Science | guardian.co.uk | 1 Jan 2009 | 5:00 am The Edge question: Leading thinkers predict the futureFlying cars, personal jetpacks, holidays on the moon, the paperless office – the predictions of futurologists are, it seems, doomed to fail. The only thing predictable about the future is its unpredictability. But that has not stopped edge.org – the online intellectual salon – asking which ideas and inventions will provide humanity's next leap forward. In its traditional New Year challenge to the planet's best thinkers it asks, "What will change everything – What game-changing scientific ideas and developments do you expect to live to see?" World-changing technology has a habit of arriving out of the blue and turning society on its head. The printing press, electricity, antibiotics, the pill, mobile phones and the internet have all transformed human experience in ways that their inventors could scarcely have imagined. So the more than 110 respondents – including scientists, authors, philosophers, musicians and journalists – have a tough job on their hands. Their life-changing ideas span everything from new forms of energy, mind-reading and foreign life forms living among us, to the ability to reprogram life. Here's a taste. Solar powerBy nearly all insider and expert accounts, we are or will be at peak oil somewhere between now and the next five years. Even if we did not have profound concerns about climate change, we would need to be looking for different ways to power our civilisation. How fortunate we are to have a safe nuclear facility a mere 93 million miles away and fortunate too that the dispensation of physical laws is such that when a photon strikes a semiconductor, an electron is released. My hope is that architects will be drawn to designing gorgeous arrays and solar towers in the desert – as expressive of our aspirations as medieval cathedrals once were. We will need new distribution systems too, smart grids – perfect Rooseveltian projects for our hard-pressed times. Could it be possible that in two or three decades we will look back and wonder why we ever thought we had a problem when we are bathed in such beneficent radiant energy? Personal genomicsSteven Pinker, psychologist and author This past year saw the introduction of direct-to-consumer genomics. A number of new companies have been launched. You can get everything from a complete sequencing of your genome (for a cool $350,000), to a screen of more than a hundred Mendelian disease genes, to a list of traits, disease risks, and ancestry data. Here are some possible outcomes: personalised medicine, in which drugs are prescribed according to the patient's molecular background rather than by trial and error; an end to many genetic diseases; cafeteria insurance [where you choose your own level of cover] will no longer be actuarially viable if the highest-risk consumers can load up on generous policies while the low-risk ones get by with the bare minimum; the ultimate empowerment of medical consumers, who will know their own disease risks and seek commensurate treatment, rather than relying on the hunches and folklore of a paternalistic family doctor. Rewriting the software of lifeCraig Venter, genome scientist, J. Craig Venter Institute We have now shown that DNA is absolutely the information-coded material of life by completely transforming one species into another simply by changing the DNA in the cell. By inserting a new chromosome into a cell and eliminating the existing chromosome all the characteristics of the original species were lost and replaced by what was coded for on the new chromosome. Very soon we will be able to do the same experiment with the synthetic chromosome. We can start with digitised genetic information and four bottles of chemicals [the four nucleotides of the genetic code] and write new software of life to direct organisms to do processes that are desperately needed, like create renewable biofuels and recycle carbon dioxide. As we learn from 3.5bn years of evolution we will convert billions of years into decades and change not only conceptually how we view life but life itself. Intellectual curiosityDaniel Dennett, philosopher, Tufts University, Medford, US The question itself and many of the answers already given by others here on edge.org point to a common theme: reflective, scientific investigation of everything is going to change everything. The snowball has started to roll and there is probably no stopping it. Will the result be a utopia or a dystopia? Which of the novelties are self-limiting and which will extinguish institutions long thought to be permanent? Will universities and newspapers become obsolete? Will hospitals and churches go the way of corner grocery stores and livery stables? Will reading music soon become as arcane a talent as reading hieroglyphics? When you no longer need to eat to stay alive, or procreate to have offspring, or locomote to have an adventure-packed life, when the residual instincts for these activities might be simply turned off by genetic tweaking, there may be no constants of human nature left at all. Except, maybe, our incessant curiosity. Mind readingFreeman Dyson, physicist, Institute of Advanced Studies, Princeton, US Neurology will change the game of human life drastically, as soon as we develop the tools to observe and direct the activities of a human brain in detail from the outside. The ancient myth of telepathy, induced by occult and spooky action-at-a-distance, would be replaced by a prosaic kind of telepathy induced by physical tools. To make radiotelepathy possible, we have only to invent two new technologies, first the direct conversion of neural signals into radio signals and vice versa, and second the placement of microscopic radio transmitters and receivers within the tissue of a living brain. I do not have any idea of the way these inventions will be achieved, but I expect them to emerge from the rapid progress of neurology before the 21st century is over. It is easy to imagine radiotelepathy as a powerful instrument of social change, used either for good or for evil. It could be a basis for mutual understanding and peaceful co-operation of humans all over the planet. Or it could be a basis for tyrannical oppression and enforced hatred between one society and another. Better brainsIrene Pepperberg, psychologist, Harvard Knowledge of exactly how the brain works will change everything. Just as we are beginning to learn that it is not the gene that controls what happens in our bodies, but rather the interplay of many genes, proteins, and environmental influences that turn genes on and off, we will learn how the interplay of various neural tissues, the chemicals in our body, environmental influences, and possibly some current unknowns, come together to affect how the brain works. We will, for example: ameliorate diseases in which the brain stops working properly – from diseases involving cognitive deficits such as Alzheimer's to those involving issues of physical control such as Parkinson's; understand and repair brains susceptible to addictions or criminality; develop models of brain function for advanced robotics and computers to design 'smart' interactive systems for, eg, space and ocean exploration; and maybe, frighteningly, attempt to improve upon the current human brain. The end of optimismBrian Eno, musician, composer, producer Many of us grew up among the reverberations of the 1960s. At that time there was a feeling that the world could be a better place, and that our responsibility was to make it real by living it. But suppose the feeling changes: that people start to anticipate the future world not in that way but instead as something more closely resembling the nightmare of desperation, fear and suspicion. What happens then? Humans fragment into tighter, more selfish bands. Big institutions, because they operate on longer timescales and require structures of social trust, don't cohere. There isn't time for them. Global projects are abandoned – not enough trust to make them work. Resources that are already scarce will be rapidly exhausted as everybody tries to grab the last precious bits. Any kind of social or global mobility is seen as a threat and harshly resisted. Freeloaders and brigands and pirates and cheats will take control. guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsSource: Science | guardian.co.uk | 1 Jan 2009 | 5:00 am NASA chief's wife to Obama: Don't fire my husband (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 1 Jan 2009 | 2:13 am Esophageal cancer linked to osteoporosis drugsBOSTON (Reuters) - Merck's popular osteoporosis drug Fosamax and other similar drugs may carry a risk for esophageal cancer, a Food and Drug Administration official said on Wednesday.Source: Reuters: Science News | 31 Dec 2008 | 10:31 pm Circulating fluid keeps donated kidneys healthierBOSTON (Reuters) - Machines that send fluid circulating through a donated kidney while it is being preserved for transplant keep the organ healthier than the standard method of simply immersing it in fluid and transporting it on ice, doctors reported on Wednesday.Source: Reuters: Science News | 31 Dec 2008 | 10:29 pm Antiobitics before infections save lives: studyLONDON (Reuters) - Giving antibiotics to patients in intensive care units as a precaution saves lives, according to a major Dutch study published Wednesday.Source: Reuters: Science News | 31 Dec 2008 | 10:09 pm 5 Tips: How to Keep Your New Year's Resolution (LiveScience.com)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 31 Dec 2008 | 7:54 pm 12 Elegant Examples of EvolutionIn preparation for Charles Darwin's upcoming 200th birthday, the editors of Nature compiled a selection of especially elegant and enlightening examples of evolution. They describe it as a resource "for those wishing to spread awareness of evidence for evolution by natural selection." Given the continuing battles over evolution in America's public schools — and, for that matter, the Islamic world — such a resource is most welcome. However, I'd like to suggest another way of looking at the findings below, which range from the moray eel's remarkable second jaw to the unexpected plumage of dinosaurs. They are, quite simply, wondrous — glimpses through an evolutionary frame of life's incredible narrative, expanding to fill every possible nook and cranny of Earth's biosphere. After all, it's hard to stir passion about the scientific validity of evolution without first captivating minds and imaginations. And this is a fine place to start.
Almost, But Not Quite, a Whale. The fossil record suggests that whales evolved on land, and intermediate species have been identified. But what of their last terrestrial ancestor? In 2007, researchers showed that Indohyus — a 50 million-year-old, dog-sized member of the extinct raoellidae ungulate family — had ears, teeth and bones that resembled whales, not other raoellids. Image: Hans Thewissen / Nature
Out of the Soup. Whales represented a mammalian return to the water, but an even more extraordinary transition was made by the first creature to venture onto land — and that was made possible by Tiktaalik, discovered in 2004 on Ellesmere Island. Tiktaalik had a flexible neck and limb-like fins suitable for shallow waters, and, before long, land. Image: Ted Daeschler / Nature
Dinosaurs of a Feather. Archaeopteryx, found in 1861, was long thought to be the first bird. Then it was recognized as something closer to a dinosaur with feathers — but still unique for that. In the 1980's, however, paleontologists digging in deposits more than 65 million years old in northern China found feathered dinosaurs which very definitely did not fly. Some dinosaurs, it appeared, may have looked far different from our traditional conception — and feathers may first have served an insulating or aesthetic, rather than aerodynamic, purpose.
Image: Kathryn Kavanagh / Nature
Image: Ellen Edmondson and Hugh Chrisp / New York State Department of Environmental Conservation
Lizard Games. Take an island in the Bahamas, add a predatory lizard called Leiocephalus carinatus, and the results are immediate. Males among the lizard's favorite prey, Anolis sagrei, soon became longer-legged, so as to better flee after drawing predatory attention during mating displays. In contrast, more sedentary females became larger, making them harder to ingest — a neat display of sex-specific selection pressures. Image: WikiMedia Commons
An Evolutionary Arms Race, Frozen in Time. Predator and prey evolve together; the adaptations of one driving adaptations in the other. But how can one study this over time, in detail? Biologists from Belgium's Catholic University of Leuven used water fleas and parasitic mites that had been preserved in the mud of a lake's bottom. The sediments were precisely dated and their inhabitants revived, allowing researchers to mix species from different eras and directly measure their developing capacity for infection and escape. Image: University of Indiana / Daphnia Genomics Consortium
Gene Flow, With Purpose. If dispersed by random animal migration, genes flowing across a region ought to dilute local pockets of genetic adaptation. But migration isn't as random as it seems: As seen in a population of great tits (the bird!) tracked in Oxfordshire, England since 1970, genes flow along channels of opportunity. Individual birds picking nesting spots best-suited to their particular traits, producing local adaptations in tiny parts of the same small forest. (These birds, incidentally, belonged to the same population that have shifted breeding times to match a changing climate.) Image: University of Oxford / Science
Selection Finds Its Own Level. Since natural selection favors traits that increase fitness, it seems that populations should eventually become genetically homogeneous. But evolution isn't so one-dimensional: When researchers adjusted the color frequencies of wild guppy populations in Trinidad, they found that unusual variants — regardless of color — had higher survival rates. This is called frequency-dependent survival: selection favoring the rare and disfavoring the common, preventing a long-term homogeneity that — no matter how beneficial in the short term — might someday prove disastrous. Image: Kimberly Hughes / Nature
Making Do. Though so often elegant, evolution can also be jury-rigged and provisional. Witness the Moray eel, whose body is so long and narrow that — unlike other fish — the suction created when it opens its mouth is too weak to catch prey. The solution: a second set of jaws and teeth that sprout from the skeleton around its gills. It's not pretty, but it works. Video: Rita Mehta / sciencetranslator/YouTube
The Genes of the Finches. The Galapagos finches whose beak adaptations were described by Darwin — and later tracked, over decades, by Peter and Rosemary Grant — are poster animals for evolution. In 2006, researchers found a genetic unit underlying their oft-described progress: calmodulin, whose expression during embryonic development changes beak shape. Image: Peter Grant and Arkhat Abzhanov See Also:
WiSci 2.0: Brandon Keim's Twitter stream and Del.icio.us feed; Wired Science on Facebook. Source: Wired: Wired Science | 31 Dec 2008 | 6:19 pm A New Push to Turn Off the Lights in 2009
Astronomers are fed up. One fifth of the world's population cannot see the Milky Way because street lamps and building lights are too bright. So scientists are mounting a new campaign, called Dark Skies Awareness, aiming to reduce light pollution as part of the 2009 International Year of Astronomy. "Reducing the number of lights on at night could help conserve energy, protect wildlife and benefit human health," astronomer Malcolm Smith of the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile wrote in a commentary Wednesday in the journal Nature. Smith points out that billions of dollars of light is needlessly shined into the sky each year. Beyond the waste of money and energy, this light is blocking people's view of the heavens. "Without a direct view of the stars, mankind is cut off from most of the universe, deprived of any direct sense of its huge scale and our tiny place within it," Smith wrote. Plus, lights confuse and harm wildlife. For example, millions of birds in North America die every year because their migration patterns are disrupted by errant light. And baby sea turtles hatched in the sand often mistakenly head toward cities, instead of the sea, because they are lured by artificial lights. Preliminary research even suggests that light at night is harmful to human health, potentially reducing the normal production of melatonin in our bodies, which suppresses cell division in cancerous tissue. There is cause for hope, though. Some cities have made improvements in laws and regulations governing light. For example, new lighting codes in New York require dimmers and lights that are activated by motion sensors in many buildings. And Toronto's Fatal Light Awareness program encourages buildings to turn lights off during bird migration season. The 2009 Dark Skies Awareness project plans a range of programs and events to raise public awareness of the issue and argue to lawmakers about the impacts of light pollution. See Also:
Image: Chicago at night. Flickr/Troy McClure SF Source: Wired: Wired Science | 31 Dec 2008 | 6:02 pm BLOG: What Will 2009 Bring to Archaeology?Will 2009 be the year Cleopatra's tomb is found? Experts muse on the year ahead.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 31 Dec 2008 | 6:00 pm China finds major dinosaur siteChinese researchers have unearthed what they believe is the largest collection of dinosaur bones ever found.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 31 Dec 2008 | 5:44 pm When land is sacred and peace profaneAndrew Brown: Can science suggest what we could do when conflicts are over sacred values and not just material goods?Source: Science | guardian.co.uk | 31 Dec 2008 | 5:14 pm A Dino Fossil Bonanza for ChinaPaleontologists in east China unearth a vast collection of dino fossils.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 31 Dec 2008 | 4:40 pm 'Injectable Bone' Made to Heal Breaks in a HurryWill an injectable white powder be the future of broken bone therapy?Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 31 Dec 2008 | 3:50 pm Future of Commercial Spaceflight Uncertain, But Promising (SPACE.com)SPACE.com - This year closed with a volley of seemingly hopeful signs for what's termed by some as "NewSpace" - an entrepreneurial spaceflight trajectory markedly different than NASA and its cabal of mainstream aerospace contractors.Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 31 Dec 2008 | 3:35 pm British engineers have developed a new environmentally friendly cement that is carbon-negativeCement, a vast source of planet-warming carbon dioxide, could be transformed into a means of stripping the greenhouse gas from the atmosphere, thanks to an innovation from British engineers. The new environmentally formulation means the cement industry could change from being a "significant emitter to a significant absorber of CO2," says Nikolaos Vlasopoulos, chief scientist at London-based Novacem, whose invention has garnered support and funding from industry and environmentalists. The new cement, which uses a different raw material, certainly has a vast potential market. Making the 2bn tonnes of cement used globally every year pumps out 5% of the world's CO2 emissions - more than the entire aviation industry. And the long-term trends are upwards: a recent report by the French bank Credit Agricole estimated that, by 2020, demand for cement will increase by 50% compared to today. Making traditional cement results in greenhouse gas emissions from two sources: it requires intense heat, and so a lot of energy to heat up the ovens that cook the raw material, such as limestone. That then releases further CO2 as it burns. But, until now, noone has found a large-scale way to tackle this fundamental problem. Novacem's cement, based on magnesium silicates, not only requires much less heating, it also absorbs large amounts of CO2 as it hardens, making it carbon negative. Set up by Vlasopoulos and his colleagues at Imperial College London, Novacem has already attracted the attention of major construction companies such as Rio Tinto Minerals, WSP Group and Laing O'Rourke, and investors including the Carbon Trust. The company has just started a £1.5m project funded by the government-backed Technology Strategy Board to build a pilot plant. If all goes well, Vlasopoulos expects to have Novacem products on the market within five years. Jonathan Essex, a civil engineer at the building consultancy Bioregional who also sits on the environment and sustainability panel for the Institution of Civil Engineers, welcomed Novacem's ideas to tackle the carbon impact of cement. "In the UK the climate bill commits us to reduce CO2 emissions, and every sector should play its part. The construction industry needs to take greater responsibility for its own environmental impact." Essex said that, if Novacem can make their cement at a competitive price, the next step could be to take even more CO2 emissions out of the process by using renewable energy to fire the furnaces. According to Novacem, its product can absorb, over its lifecycle, around 0.6 tonnes of CO2 per tonne of cement. This compares to carbon emissions of about 0.4 tonnes per of standard cement. "From that point of view, it's attractive," said Rachael Nutter, head of business incubators at the Carbon Trust. "The real challenge is what is the supply chain, who do you need to partner with to take it to market? The million-dollar question is what are the applications of it? If it ends up as decorative applications such as floor tiles, it's quite interesting but not as much as if you get into load-bearing structural stuff." Previous attempts to make cement greener have included adding more aggregate to a concrete mixture, thereby using less cement. But this still does not tackle the problem of the carbon emissions from making the cement in the first place. Other systems use polymers in the mix, but none have yet made a significant impact on the market. A spokesperson for the British Cement Association expressed a sceptical note, saying that though there was much ongoing laboratory work on new types of cement, there were also problems. "The reality is that the geological availability, and global distribution, of suitable natural resources, coupled with the extensive validation needed to confirm fitness-for-purpose, make it highly unlikely that these cements will a be realistic alternative for volume building." Vlasopoulos responded that magnesium silicates are abundant worldwide, with 10,000 billion tonnes available, according to some estimates. "In addition, the production process of our cement is of a chemical nature, which means it can also utilise various industrial byproducts containing magnesium in its composition." He is confident the material will be strong enough for use in buildings but acknowledged that getting licenses to use it will take several years of testing. Explainer: Ecofriendly vs traditional cementStandard cement, also known as Portland cement, is made by heating limestone or clay to around 1,500C. The processing of the ingredients releases 0.8 tonnes of CO2 per tonne of cement. When it is eventually mixed with water for use in a building, each tonne of cement can absorb up to 0.4 tonnes of CO2, but that still leaves an overall carbon footprint per tonne of 0.4 tonnes. Novacem's cement, which has a patent pending on it, uses magnesium silicates which emit no CO2 when hearted. Its production process also runs at much lower temperatures - around 650C. This leads to total CO2 emissions of up to 0.5 tonnes of CO2 per tonne of cement produced. But the Novacem cement formula absorb far more CO2 as it hardens - about 1.1 tonnes. So the overall carbon footprint is negative - ie the cement removes 0.6 tonnes of CO2 per tonne used. guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsSource: Science | guardian.co.uk | 31 Dec 2008 | 2:59 pm NASA says Columbia crew had no chance to surviveCAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - Astronauts on the shuttle Columbia were trying to regain control of their craft before it broke apart in 2003, but there was no chance of surviving the accident, a NASA report said on Tuesday.Source: Reuters: Science News | 31 Dec 2008 | 2:54 pm Mammoths Wiped Out by Prehistoric 'Perfect Storm'?A new theory links three explanations for the disappearance of mammoths.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 31 Dec 2008 | 2:53 pm
|
