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Saturday, 29 June 2013
Aiming For 'Wild and Crazy' Energy Ideas
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IRA FLATOW, HOST:
This is SCIENCE FRIDAY, I'm Ira Flatow. Back in 2007, Congress funded, and the president signed into law, a new kind of research organization, the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, or ARPA-E. You had heard of DARPA? This was ARPA-E. And its mission is to back energy technologies that are too risky for investors but offer a potentially huge payoff if they work.
The agency has gambled on flywheels, compressed air energy storage, lithium air batteries, even wind energy kits. Cheryl Martin is deputy director of ARPA-E, where they're funding some cutting-edge ideas like new batteries in the hopes of finding the next big thing in energy. She joins us here in New York. Welcome to SCIENCE FRIDAY, Dr. Martin.
CHERYL MARTIN: Thanks, I'm glad to be here, Ira.
FLATOW: It's an exciting time to be involved in energy research?
MARTIN: It is a very exciting time. Energy's finally cool again.
(LAUGHTER)
FLATOW: You know, because we are always looking for new inventions in energy and whatever, and we come up with all kinds of new ideas. Let's get into some things that are happening out there, for example the sulfur ion battery. Is that - are you familiar with that?
MARTIN: Yeah, absolutely. I think the bigger picture is that everybody's trying to come up with batteries that have very high energy density. We're trying to go after something that can help us, when you think about fuel in our car engines, right, lots of energy packed into that engine. And so as you think about today's batteries, their issue is that they're not as energy dense.
Just think about it, how much energy you can get into a certain space. And when you look at what's out there, that could be really game-changing. Lithium sulfur comes to mind. It's literally, along with lithium air, the highest energy density you could get.
FLATOW: And how - what is the process that would take that from just the basic research to actually making the lithium air battery?
MARTIN: Yeah, well, lithium air technology's not new. It's been around for a long time. And it's got some great advantages. It's cheap, it's abundant, and it's got this very high energy density. However, when you go to put it into a battery, some of the challenges are often that as it starts to work and cycle, the battery, parts of it dissolve.
And so it literally just loses its life. I think that's...
FLATOW: I hate it when that happens.
MARTIN: I hate that when it - yeah, it's a problem.
FLATOW: So lithium sulfur does have a promise, but it still has...
MARTIN: Challenges.
FLATOW: Challenges.
MARTIN: But there's some really cool breakthroughs out there.
FLATOW: Yes, give us an idea.
MARTIN: We've funded a couple. So if you want to get rid of the whole concept of having it dissolve, make it solid. So the whole idea of could you put a solid - the liquid is called the electrolyte. So could you do a solid electrolyte? So we've funded some effort in that area. There's others out there who've made some progress in those. So that's really tremendously promising.
The idea of, you know, you don't have to have an organic solvent, you could do water, and so it changes some of those dynamics, as well. We've got one funded like that. So I think all of the real change in technology advance and nanotechnology, solid states, have really opened up researchers' eyes. And if you look at a graph of innovation in the lithium sulfur space over the past 10 years, it's a proverbial hockey stick, which is great for innovation. A lot of people are out there inventing.
FLATOW: I remember going out to - years ago, going out to Princeton and watching the tokamak out there, that was a hydrogen - a fusion experiment that was going on. And I said how do you power this thing? And they said, oh, you have to see this. This is a giant flywheel. A flywheel? Flywheels, real big flywheels, they turn, they have a tremendous amount of energy stored in these flywheels.
And I remember actually going out to California in the '70s and seeing cars that had experimental flywheels. And are you working - is that being resurrected the flywheel idea, again?
MARTIN: Yeah, I mean, you know, you're right. Flywheel technology, again, has been around for a long time. Actually, you know, right now in the state of New York there is a 20-megawatt installation of flywheels. There's actually one that I think they're breaking ground on an install today in Pennsylvania of a new flywheel facility.
People are interested in flywheels for exactly the reason you said: They start, stop, their effect really quickly. So if all of a sudden a cloud comes across your solar panel, this flywheel can kick on really fast and balance out the electricity. And so that's a real intriguing advantage to them. It's just taken a while. I do think the utilities are very, very interested, and these demonstrations that we're seeing I think are going to definitely help other people make the decision.
But we're working on the next generation, so...
FLATOW: Tell us.
MARTIN: So the whole question of can you - you know, the real question how much more energy density can these things store, the more the better. And so our belief is that by changing the material, so going to composite materials for these things and being able to get them thin enough, strong enough, resilient enough that you can levitate them and float them to spin them will give us, you know, a five-, eight-times kick.
FLATOW: So there's no ball bearings with a spindle in the middle anymore?
MARTIN: Well, you know, and it's...
FLATOW: It's levitating it magnetically and spinning it?
MARTIN: That's the idea.
FLATOW: Wow.
MARTIN: And, you know, and I think those types of things, they're already quite robust. But I think you take things to another level if you can get high levels of storage. So yeah, exciting times.
FLATOW: 1-800-989-8255 is our number, we're talking about new energy technologies with Dr. Cheryl Martin. You were in - it's unusual for me to talk to an official from Washington here in New York in our studios. You're here because you had a special visit that you were making.
MARTIN: Absolutely. You know, ARPA-E does award awards to universities, small businesses and large businesses all over the country. And so I was in town yesterday for New York Energy Week, which is actually at both a state- and a city-wide celebration of all that's going on in energy.
And so we were up at CUNY, City University, and celebrating their spinout of a new small company called Urban Electric Power. And their technology is a battery technology that you'd use not for a vehicle but actually in a building that would allow you to manage the peak load of the building. And so it's exciting, exciting to see a technology move from the lab out into the market where real customers are going to start to try it.
FLATOW: I think it's also surprising to see how much solar energy has caught on, people installing solar in their own homes, and it's just terrific.
MARTIN: Yeah, I think the advances in all of these technology areas make things that people wouldn't have thought possible years - you know, just a few years ago seem very, very possible.
FLATOW: Speaking of very possible and very unusual new things, I want to bring in another guest who's created a tiny battery the size of a grain of sand using a 3-D printer. Is that correct? Jennifer Lewis is the Wyss Professor of Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard in Cambridge. She's here in our New York studios. Is that right, you made a tiny grain-of-sand battery?
JENNIFER LEWIS: Yes, we did. My group, in collaboration with Shen Dillon and sponsored by the Department of Energy, focused on three-dimensional printing of these types of batteries. And the concept is to integrate form and function to create integrated devices for the first time.
FLATOW: Now it does seem like - and so what would you do with a tiny battery the size of a grain of sand? What uses are...?
LEWIS: So one of the drivers for that is maybe threefold are the things that we're thinking about: autonomous sensor arrays, which are very small sensors that can harvest and then use the battery to store and sense in the environment and then ping a signal back to...
FLATOW: You mean like I could swallow it or something like...?
LEWIS: You could in some cases but I think this is more of an environmental type sensor platform, microrobots and biomedical devices, so coming back to that first example.
FLATOW: And, you know, batteries seem to be the key to everything happening, right? Anything electric, we've got to have the batteries for them.
LEWIS: If you ask a researcher in battery technologies, they will absolutely tell you that, yeah, but it is true. They're so important. And certainly I would say that the - our batteries are 1,000 smaller than the smallest rechargeable lithium ion batteries that you can find commercially. So if you think about that, just like Cheryl was saying, this opens up tremendous space for innovation at these very small land(ph) scales.
FLATOW: Can anyone print one like you did, on a 3-D printer?
LEWIS: Well, not with commercial 3-D printers. We've custom designed and built our own 3-D printers, as well as the inks, the functional inks that allow you to print the anode and cathode in interdigitated fashion. The interesting thing about our batteries is they have feature sizes that are smaller than a single strand of hair, and as you've already mentioned, they fit on the size of a sand of grain.
FLATOW: Wow, wow, what about in general printing batteries? Could we print - if nothing that size, can you go online and get a design for a 3-D battery if you want to print one?
LEWIS: So I think this is going to open up this design space, and although we focused on micro-batteries as the first demonstration just to really push the envelope and show what 3-D printing can do in terms of functional devices, this could be done over large areas, large volumes, and really interesting form factors beyond just planar type devices.
So yes, you know, I eventually imagine that you're going to be able to do that. And then in terms of, you know, really rapidly enhancing the design cycle, this is a great platform for doing that, and...
FLATOW: Yeah because there's a lot of talent out there, right?
MARTIN: Absolutely, and I think the whole idea, once someone demonstrates something is possible, everybody else starts thinking about how they could use it to solve the problem they have. And so I think we're going to see continual innovation. Just asking the guys back at ARPA-E about Jennifer's invention, oh, they were like, oh, well she could use this type of electrode. They had all kinds of ideas to jump in and, you know, innovate...
FLATOW: You crowd-source this stuff, and the ideas come back.
MARTIN: That's part of this, right, is to get people, you know, aware of what's going on, and there's a lot of ideas out there. We don't lack for ideas. We simply, I think, lack for the connection to...
LEWIS: Right.
MARTIN: ...to the problem that they can solve.
FLATOW: How about lacking for the money? I mean how much is ARPA-E funded now compared to how it used to be and where it's going in the future?
MARTIN: So ARPA-E, as you already said, we're a four-year-old agency. We funded $770 million worth of projects, 285 of them so far. Our annual budget this year is about 250 million. And so, you know, for the project size we do, you know, $3 million is a good-sized project to demonstrate what's possible.
FLATOW: But your next year's budget is much lower than that, is it not?
MARTIN: The next year's budget isn't set yet.
FLATOW: Oh.
MARTIN: So in the budget - we're in the budget process.
FLATOW: Very diplomatic. I can see why you work in Washington.
(LAUGHTER)
MARTIN: I've been in Washington for two years.
(LAUGHTER)
MARTIN: I'd also like to point out...
FLATOW: Yes.
MARTIN: ...in terms of the funding, DOE has 46 energy frontier research centers. And the work that I was doing was part of one of those centers. And so that's another way to get innovation out into the popular space.
FLATOW: Speaking of the popular space, let's go to William(ph) in Philomath(ph) - is it Philomath, Oregon, William?
WILLIAM: Yeah. It's Philomath. I was wondering if you could talk about graphing batteries or like carbon nanotubes for electrodes.
LEWIS: Yes. Certainly, there's a lot of work in this area for anodes because the idea is to try to create both cathodes and electrodes to allow - they have this higher energy density, as Cheryl...
MARTIN: Yep.
LEWIS: ...was talking about. This is really the holy grail of battery space, both energy density and power density.
FLATOW: Graphing is a miraculous sort of carbon...
LEWIS: It is.
FLATOW: ...right?
LEWIS: It is. It's a molecularly thin single layer of carbon in graphitic form.
FLATOW: And incredibly strong.
LEWIS: Exactly.
FLATOW: It's conductive.
LEWIS: That's correct.
FLATOW: You can make things with it.
LEWIS: Yep. That's correct.
FLATOW: Can you 3-D print with it?
LEWIS: Yes. In fact, we have.
(LAUGHTER)
MARTIN: Yep.
FLATOW: Yeah?
LEWIS: So we've made 3-D architectures out of graphene-based inks.
FLATOW: Wow. That's it. That's very interesting. What would you - if I gave her whole budget to you, I'm going to give ARPA-E's budget to you or let me give you $50 million of it...
LEWIS: Right.
FLATOW: ...which - it might be what her whole budget is next year. What would you do with it?
LEWIS: I would say thank you for the best Christmas present ever.
(LAUGHTER)
LEWIS: But, no, what we would seriously do with that kind of money is really rapidly advance 3-D printing in this functional integrated electronics and battery space. I think the possibilities of 3-D printing are to go well beyond just printing plastic, which is largely what 3-D printers are doing right now. And we've developed the palliative inks, conductive inks, these battery anode and electrode inks. And I think actually there is unlimitless(ph) possibilities.
FLATOW: This is SCIENCE FRIDAY from NPR. I'm Ira Flatow talking about new energy technologies. Let me ask, well, Doctor, let me ask you the - I'll give you the blank check question. Since I gave your budget away to her...
(LAUGHTER)
FLATOW: ...if you had a blank check and you could do anything with it, any size, where would you invest it? How would you invest it? What would you put it into?
MARTIN: Oh, gosh. Well, ARPA-E invests in everything from, you know, new ways of visioning plants so that they could be much more fuel-like and less plant-like to no rare Earth components of magnets and motors, so we could, you know, get out of that problem, to power electronics and could we route the grid, just like we route the Internet.
FLATOW: Let's talk about the grid a little bit. How much does the grid need to be modernized and what...
MARTIN: Yes.
FLATOW: ...it certainly would need...
MARTIN: Yeah. Well...
FLATOW: ...a lot of work.
MARTIN: ...I mean if you ask pretty much anybody in the electricity industry, right, they would say, you know, if Alexander Graham Bell came in and saw the cellphone, he won't know what to do with it. But if Edison came in and saw the power grid, he would know how to fix it.
(LAUGHTER)
MARTIN: And so...
FLATOW: That's very good.
MARTIN: Right. I mean...
FLATOW: Yeah.
MARTIN: ...and so there's a lot of pieces of technology that have not been updated. I mean we've done tremendous amounts to grow the electric grid, but there's a tremendous amount of innovation needed. And it's exciting to see everything from, again, software...
FLATOW: Right.
MARTIN: ...we could route the grid.
FLATOW: Right.
MARTIN: We could not lose so much energy and just moving electrons around.
FLATOW: And if we had more electric cars, they could be part of the grid, could they not help store energy in the electric battery in these cars?
MARTIN: Well, I think the whole idea of storage on the grid is important, right?
FLATOW: Yeah.
MARTIN: It - when you're generating renewable energy and times when you don't need it, you could store it. If you're talking about balancing loads on the grid, you could store it. If you're simply talking about resilience, all those things are helpful. So certainly, electric vehicles having batteries in them, it's the battery component that counts. But absolutely.
FLATOW: Does any of ARPA-E's money going to nuclear power research?
MARTIN: Not today. The way we look at areas is, you know, given our budget size, is 30, $40 million going to make a difference? Is shining a light of that size in the space going to make a difference? We could. We just haven't seen any good ideas that fit that budget constraint.
FLATOW: Dr. Lewis, where do you go now with your tiny little battery?
LEWIS: Well...
FLATOW: I don't mean literally, but where do you move forward?
LEWIS: Sure. I think, you know, one example might be in the hearing aid industry.
FLATOW: Oh.
LEWIS: So right now, hearing aids, 98 percent of the plastic pieces that you have for molding to your ear or behind your ear are 3-D printed, but none of the electronics are.
FLATOW: Wait. Let me back that up for a second.
LEWIS: Yeah.
FLATOW: Ninety percent are already 3-D printed?
LEWIS: That's correct because you can take a mold of the ear and then just laser print these...
FLATOW: Wow.
LEWIS: ...very quickly. But then you have to hand pot(ph) all of the electronics in the batteries. Batteries have to be changed every seven days in these kinds of devices. And so we think about an elderly person trying to do that where they don't have the dexterity - wonder if you could have a rechargeable battery just like your cellphone every night, plug it in or put it on an inductively charged charger by your bed stand, it would be tremendous, I think.
FLATOW: And that's where, you know, is there a patent on that? Is anybody setting up companies to do that?
LEWIS: It's funny that you should ask that...
(LAUGHTER)
LEWIS: ...because just this week, before we came onto the show, we filed a patent.
(LAUGHTER)
MARTIN: Ira, you're an inspiration for the patent.
FLATOW: I've just been doing this too long.
(LAUGHTER)
LEWIS: Right.
FLATOW: Yeah. That's - well, that's the kind of thing that drives technologies, having a patent on it...
MARTIN: Exactly, exactly.
FLATOW: ...and getting it into production. But it's always then years before we see something that's going to turn out.
MARTIN: That's correct. That's correct.
FLATOW: Well, I want to thank you for taking time to be with us. I know you have to go. Jennifer Lewis is the Wyss Professor of Biologically Inspired Engineering - I like that - Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University in Cambridge, and your battery project is not funded by ARPA-E, no? We're going to...
LEWIS: We have funding from ARPA-E, though.
(LAUGHTER)
FLATOW: You do have funding. We're going to take a break. When we come back, we're going to still talk with Dr. Cheryl Martin, who's the deputy director for ARPA-E. She's here with us in the studios. And then we're going to bring on a couple of twin sisters who are going to come on and talk about their experiments to take soybeans and healthy soybeans to extract hydrogen from water, and it's an interesting story. We hope they'll share it with us. So stay with us. We'll be right back after this break.
I'm Ira Flatow. This is SCIENCE FRIDAY from NPR.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
FLATOW: This is SCIENCE FRIDAY. I'm Ira Flatow.
We're talking this hour about next-generation batteries and all kinds of next-generation energy techniques and 3-D printing of batteries, fascinating, future of energy with Dr. Cheryl Martin, deputy director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency/Energy or dash energy, whatever. It's ARPA-E. You know that. I'd like to bring on two other guests now who, in their spare time, have been splitting water to make hydrogen fuel using something you might have in your kitchen cabinet. They are twin sisters. Shilpa and Shweta Iyer, recent graduates of Comsewogue High School in Port Jefferson Station - that's in New York - and winners of the Proton Onsite Scholarship and Innovation Program. Welcome to SCIENCE FRIDAY.
SHILPA IYER: Thank you.
SHWETA IYER: Thank you.
FLATOW: Hi. You know, I watched your video on - up there on the Internet. Quite fascinating.
IYER: Thank you.
FLATOW: Let's talk about your winning-project. You found a way of using cheap, abundant soybeans to extract hydrogen from water. Tell us about that a little bit. Choose up who's going to talk.
IYER: I'm Shilpa.
FLATOW: Go ahead. Sure.
IYER: We wanted something that was going to be cheap and environmentally friendly. And right now, industrially, to produce hydrogen, the use of platinum catalyst, which makes it not an economical option for widespread use, so we decided to go into our backyard and see if we can find something green that would possibly work as a catalyst for hydrogen production.
FLATOW: Mm-hmm. And you found soybeans?
IYER: Yep. We went in there with a shoebox, and we tried all the different parts of the plant. We tried the leaves, the fruits, the seeds, and we hit upon peanuts, which showed some promising activity. And we hypothesized that maybe it was because of the protein content in peanuts. So from there, we decided to try soybeans.
FLATOW: Mm-hmm. And so you came up with a way of making the electrodes out of soybeans?
IYER: Yep, that's right.
FLATOW: And how much cheaper is that than the way the electrodes are made now?
IYER: This is Shweta. And actually, it's much cheaper. Platinum catalysts right now are extremely expensive because per ounce, platinum is around $1,600, whereas our catalyst made of soybeans and molybdenum are much less expensive. Soybeans are nominal and molybdenum is only 40 cents per ounce.
FLATOW: Forty cents an ounce versus platinum, which - wow. And so you made the catalyst and you're able to - and as I say, I saw it on the video, to extract hydrogen out of the water. It's very simply.
IYER: Yes.
FLATOW: And so as we talked about it before, have you got a patent on your project yet?
IYER: We do have a patent. We filed a U.S. provisional patent for our catalyst.
FLATOW: Mm-hmm. And have you got a company interested in it yet?
IYER: Yes, there is a company, Nagarjuna, who contacted the Brookhaven National Laboratory, and they're interested in our research.
FLATOW: Mm-hmm. How did you get interested in science being twins? You grew up together. Did you both find the interested at the same time?
IYER: Yep. Being twins, we're really close and we've been able to share a lot of our interests and passions. And we were always interested in energy research, and we wanted to see if we can contribute something to the efforts of finding something viable for future use. So we decided to try hydrogen because it's the most abundant element, and we wondered why it wasn't being used as fuel.
FLATOW: Mm-hmm. I understand that you spent the summer in India, and then you came back to New York and saw a lack of energy options, especially you were influenced when the New York area was hit by Hurricane Sandy.
IYER: That's correct. When we were in India, we actually witnessed daily power outages, and also there are a lot of unreliable energy sources besides that. And coming back to the U.S. is where we taught we have energy at our disposal. We were hit by Hurricane Sandy and realized that the energy crisis is really a worldwide problem.
FLATOW: Wow. And so where do you go from here? Are you going to big energies college? Did someone going to snap you ladies up?
(LAUGHTER)
IYER: Well, I'm Shweta. I'll be going to Stony Brook University to study chemical engineering.
FLATOW: Aha. You say hello Alan Alda while you're there.
IYER: I will.
(LAUGHTER)
FLATOW: That's where he is, talking about science and electrical engineering. That's terrific. And you're going to be, hopefully, refining what you're doing. Could you make - take it another step further or add to it?
IYER: Yes. I like to continue to try to research other methods of hydrogen production and to, perhaps, improve on our current catalyst by using different types of biomass or different types of metal.
FLATOW: Mm-hmm. Well, Shilpa where are you headed?
IYER: I'll be going to Cornell University in the fall.
FLATOW: Dress warmly. No, I...
IYER: I will.
(LAUGHTER)
FLATOW: I want to thank you both for taking time to be with us, and the best of luck to you.
IYER: Thank you.
IYER: Thank you.
FLATOW: You're welcome. Shilpa and Shweta Iyer are recent graduates of Comsewogue High School in Port Jefferson Station - that's in Long Island - and winners of the Proton OnSite Scholarship and Innovation Program. Quite interesting, Dr. Martin, to see youngsters so interested.
MARTIN: Absolutely, Ira. I think, you know, I think the really great thing - they picked out what's the real issue to - how do you find something abundant and cheap? And so I think it's a long way to go until we'll probably have a catalyst from the soybeans out there. But they were going in the right direction, and to think high school kids, you know, it's awesome. It's inspiring, hopefully, to a lot of other kids to say that they can, you know, go out there and invent.
FLATOW: Right. Yeah, you know, we talk about Maker Faires and things like that all the time. And there is no shortage, is there, of ideas? As you said...
MARTIN: Absolutely not. And sometimes it's the untrained eye that brings a new question that everybody with their assumptions about what's possible hasn't asked lately. And maybe this is the perfect catalyst. Maybe it's not, but it's a piece of the questioning we have to do if we're really going to solve this energy problem. So, exciting to hear their story.
FLATOW: Mm-hmm. Here's a tweet from Maggie Ryan Stanford, who says: It seems like everyone you look - everywhere you look these days, young women are kicking major science butt.
(LAUGHTER)
FLATOW: And it's the dreamiest. It is. You know, women are getting interested.
MARTIN: Absolutely. Yesterday morning, as part of New York Energy Week, I was Uptown, and we had, I don't know, 150, 200 women in the room to honor four women from government in New York that have made tremendous contribution. And to see that many women across the sector, I mean, as I said, energy's cool, and there are women making a big difference.
FLATOW: Mm-hmm. And being a geek is hot, now, too.
MARTIN: It is. Always has been.
FLATOW: Yes. We geeks know that.
(LAUGHTER)
FLATOW: We're trying to become Benjies, which actually is after Benjamin Franklin, because he was a geek, but he was also interested in the arts and music, just like that. So...
MARTIN: Exactly. He was a Renaissance man himself.
FLATOW: Yeah. Benjie. Let's go to Benjie - Bob in Chicago. Hi, Bob. Welcome to SCIENCE FRIDAY.
BOB: Oh, thank you very much. Talk about energy, or abundant, cheap, and young women in energy. What can you tell me about energy storage? I see Danielle Fong, I think it is, from LightSail doing stuff with compressed air for energy storage. Are we doing much work on that?
MARTIN: You certainly - you bring up a good point. There's a lot of ways to think about storage. There's traditional batteries. There's flywheels that we just talked about and compressed air energy storage. So you'll see it, CAES. And there's a number of groups out there, LightSail is one of them, General Compression. Again, the trick is you basically take air, and you can compress it, you know, for example, into an underground cavern. You capture the energy, and then when you release it, you get it back. And the trick is, you know, how do you that without losing the energy? Just like in batteries and flywheels. And so we are continuing to look at all those options.
FLATOW: Mm-hmm. Thanks for calling, Bob.
BOB: You're welcome.
FLATOW: Is the drop in price of photos - of photo panels, solar cell panels, is that a good thing? I mean, it's almost like saying, well, they're very cheap now. Everybody you can use them. But on the other hand, you might say, well, we're not making a profit on selling any of these.
MARTIN: You know, I think any type of technology goes through these periods where something's very expensive. It reaches a tipping point. It becomes much cheaper. So it gets more adoption, as you said earlier, right? It's on a lot of people's roofs right now. It gives us the, you know, the people, the experts in installation and all those things who are out there, there's an industry developing. Well, now the next generations of technology can come along and use those channels to market, to bring more improved and better technology. So I think, ultimately, it's a good thing.
FLATOW: How do you at ARPA-E know when something is a hit, when you have something that's a success?
MARTIN: Well, since we're four, and DARPA's 50, I figure that all we need is the Internet of energy, and we can declare victory and go home. But until then, you know, I think we're going to have to - the path of commercialization in energy's a longer time. But we look at, in the three years that we nominally have projects, what happens at month 37? Are they moving on to spin out a company? Are they moving on to a partnership with a bigger company? Are they in a test bed with the military? The military's a very big user of energy. And so that's how we know if things are moving forward.
FLATOW: You compare yourself with DARPA, which is a good comparison. But DARPA has a huge advantage over you in that they have the D in their name. They're the defense, right? And you would see, these days, that the Pentagon can get anything it wanted if it just ask Congress, because they throw things at it that it doesn't want. And if you just say we're going to make it for the military, you can get funding.
MARTIN: Well, the thing for, you know, yes, DARPA has a D. But the military has a big E called energy that's a very big expense for them. And so, certainly, we spend a lot of time working with the military on their needs. They have needs, you know, far afield. They have isolated bases. They have lots and lots of challenges, right?
FLATOW: Mm-hmm. We've had the secretary of the Navy on here and...
MARTIN: Oh, outstanding.
FLATOW: ...(unintelligible) scientist, and then he seems to be the greenest guy anywhere, trying to save energy to save lives in the military.
MARTIN: Well, absolutely, right? You have a system where you're out in the field. You're isolated from your supply chains, or they could potentially be dangerous. And so you want to make sure that you're using as little energy as possible for everything that you do. You want to make sure, if you had a chance to generate your own electricity, that you can. Subtle things - running a, you know, a generator is not as cheap as running a - as silent as running a solar panel.
FLATOW: Yeah, and it takes men and material to bring that fuel to run that generator, which puts people's lives in jeopardy.
MARTIN: Yeah, exactly. And so that's why they're very, very interested in energy, as well, which is great because the interests are very well aligned with the everyday consumer.
FLATOW: Dr. Martin, we've run out of time. Would love to have you back. Thank you very much for taking to be with us today.
MARTIN: Thank you so much.
FLATOW: Cheryl Martin is deputy director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, or ARPA-E, in Washington, D.C. I'm Ira Flatow, and this is SCIENCE FRIDAY, from NPR.
Copyright ? 2013 NPR. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to NPR. This transcript is provided for personal, noncommercial use only, pursuant to our Terms of Use. Any other use requires NPR's prior permission. Visit our permissions page for further information.
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Source: http://www.npr.org/2013/06/28/196594974/aiming-for-wild-and-crazy-energy-ideas?ft=1&f=1007
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Soaring golds buoy TSX; but BlackBerry gets pummeled
By John Tilak
TORONTO (Reuters) - Canada's main stock index hit a one-week high on Friday as gold-mining shares shot through the roof after bullion rallied, overshadowing a plunge in smartphone maker BlackBerry
The gold sector soared more than 8 percent to record its biggest single-day percentage jump in more than 3-1/2 years.
Despite its gain on the last trading day of the second quarter, the index posted its biggest quarterly decline in a year, falling 4.9 percent.
BlackBerry lost more than 26 percent of its market value after its quarterly report offered few signs of a long-promised turnaround. The company posted an unexpected operating loss and gave few details on sales of its make-or-break new line of smartphones, and did not signal a return to profit in the current quarter.
Giving the market support was data that showed Japan's consumer prices stopped falling in May, while labor demand reached its strongest level in five years.
While global markets were hit hard by Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke's hints last week of a tightening monetary policy, investors took heart from another Fed official's comments on Thursday that Fed asset purchases will be more aggressive than outlined last week if U.S. economic growth falters.
The market is starting to realize that the Fed is not likely to put a sharp end to its massive bond buying program, said Sadiq Adatia, chief investment officer at Sun Life Global Investments.
"Bernanke was talking about taking the foot off the pedal, rather than putting the brakes on," he added. "It's loosening the amount that is going in, rather than taking it all out."
The Toronto Stock Exchange's S&P/TSX composite index <.gsptse> closed up 123.33 points, or 1.03 percent, at 12,129.11. The benchmark Canadian index is down 2.4 percent this year.
"We'll probably see a sideways-moving market in Canada, probably lower, over the summer," said Adatia, who expects the weakness to result mainly from a slowdown in the country's housing industry and softer commodity prices.
Nine of the 10 main sectors on the index were higher on Friday.
The materials sector, which includes mining stocks, added 4.7 percent. Gold mining shares jumped 8.4 percent as the price of bullion climbed.
Financials, the index's most heavily weighted sector, were up 0.4 percent. Toronto-Dominion Bank
BCE Inc
BlackBerry's drop to C$11.08 caused a 7.7 percent fall in the information technology sector, the only group to decline.
($1=$1.05 Canadian)
(Editing by Peter Galloway)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/tsx-set-open-higher-blackberry-weigh-heavily-124034992.html
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NASA picks Florida agency to take over shuttle landing strip
By Irene Klotz
CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - NASA has selected Space Florida, a state-backed economic development agency, to take over operations, maintenance and development of the space shuttle's idled landing site at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, officials said on Friday.
Terms of the agreement, which have not yet been finalized, were not disclosed, but Space Florida has made no secret about its desire to take over facilities no longer needed by NASA to develop a multi-user commercial spaceport, somewhat akin to an airport or seaport.
The state already has a lease for one of the space shuttle's processing hangars, and an agreement with Boeing to use the refurbished facility for its planned commercial space taxi.
The so-called CST-100 is one of three spaceships under development in partnership with NASA to fly astronauts to the International Space Station, a permanently staffed, $100 billion research outpost that flies about 250 miles above Earth.
NASA ended its 30-year space shuttle program in 2011, leaving Russia's Soyuz capsules as the sole means to transport crews to the station, a service that costs the United States more than $70 million per person. NASA hopes to buy rides commercially from a U.S. company by 2017.
The shuttle's retirement left the Kennedy Space Center loaded with equipment and facilities that are not needed in NASA's new human space initiative, which includes a heavy-lift rocket and deep-space capsule for journeys to asteroids, the moon and other destinations beyond the space station's orbit.
Last year, NASA solicited proposals for agencies or companies to take over the shuttle landing facility and its 15,000-foot (4,572-meter) runway, one of the longest in the world.
Additional landing site infrastructure includes an aircraft parking ramp measuring 480 by 550 feet, a landing aids control building, a 90-foot (27-meter) wide shuttle tow way, an air traffic control tower and a 23,000-square-foot (2,137-square-meter) enclosure used by convoy vehicles that serviced the shuttles after landing.
In addition to shuttles returning from orbit, the runway is used by heavy transport aircraft, military cargo planes, T-38, Gulfstream G-2 and F-104 aircraft, and helicopters.
Space Florida would like that list to also include suborbital passenger ships, such as the two-seater Lynx space plane being developed by privately owned XCOR Aerospace, orbital vehicles like Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen's air-launched Stratolaunch Systems, and unmanned aircraft.
"We look forward to working with NASA and KSC leadership in the coming months to finalize the details of this transaction in a way that will provide the greatest benefit to incoming commercial aerospace businesses," Space Florida President Frank DiBello said in a statement.
Turning the shuttle landing facility over to a commercial operator will save NASA more than $2 million a year in operations and maintenance costs, documents posted on the agency's procurement website show.
The landing facility also includes a 50,000-square-foot (4,645-square-meter) hangar that Space Florida already owns. A commercial flight services company, Starfighters Aerospace, currently operates there.
NASA said it received five bids for the shuttle landing facility, including the winning one.
The announcement that Space Florida had been chosen was made by NASA administrator Charles Bolden who was in Florida for the opening of the shuttle Atlantis exhibit at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex.
Proposals to take over one of the shuttle's two launch pads are due on July 5.
(Editing by Jane Sutton and Paul Simao)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/nasa-picks-florida-agency-over-shuttle-landing-strip-212355387.html
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Android App Video Review: Despicable Me
In anticipation of the Despicable Me sequel, we've got a great new runner tie-in game from Gameloft. Yes, you heard all of that correctly. It's a movie tie in game that is actually good, if in a tired and overdone genre, and it was indeed developed by Gameloft. Being set in such a hilariously charming universe like Despicable Me certainly doesn't hurt. The game is called Despicable Me, and it is loads of fun, not to mention free.
This is a three lane switching runner, like Agent Dash. Despite being in such an overdone genre, it's really very fun and fresh. Unexpected things happen constantly, as new obstacles or enemies are introduced at a moment's notice and you just have to roll with it. Whether you're doing battle with Vector, riding Fluffy Unicorn to collect loads of bananas, or smashing everything in sight as the massive mega minion, there is always something patently insane and absurd going on, and it always keeps ?a smile on your face.
There are two areas to enjoy. Gru's neighborhood, and Gru's lab. Each come with loads of unique settings and obstacles, and there is even an exclusive new villain to fight, created just for this game. As you play and unlock achievements, you can redeem those achievements for Despicable Coins, which let you purchase revives, bypass difficult objectives and much more. They are essentially the premium currency of this game, and yes, all the currencies can be purchased in-app if you choose. But thankfully, Gameloft toned it down on pushing them in your face, though they do push the social Facebook connectivity like nobody's business. In the end, this is just another runner, but it's so well done and set in such an entertaining universe, that it's actually worth playing! And again, it's totally free, and actually feels free.
Download the free Appolicious Android app
Source: http://www.androidapps.com/games/articles/13563-android-app-video-review-despicable-me
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Google gaming console in the works | Gamezebo
Move over OUYA, there's a new Android console maker in town. And unlike OUYA, this particular entrant won't need to go to Kickstarter to raise funds for its machine. That's because the maker in question is Google, owner of the Android OS and one of the largest and most ubiquitous tech companies around.
Google has said nothing officially about its console ambitions, but sources close to the situation have told the Wall Street Journal that it is indeed in the works ? and that its development is being spurred in part by fears that Apple is readying a video game console of its own.
That's fitting, as building a dedicated box to control all parts of the Android game ecosystem is a particularly Apple-esque move. Despite Google's mixed track record when it ventures from software to hardware, it makes perfect sense to cut out the middleman and keep the entire gaming pie for itself. It's a rapidly expanding pie too. While mobile games on iOS have a big lead on those found on Google Play, Android gaming is growing at a much faster rate.
Google has also seen OUYA do some of its dirty work, testing the waters for an Android-based console. Regardless of the final verdict on the crowdfunded gaming cube, its mere existence could be the proof of concept that Google needs to travel down the same path.
Of course nothing with Google involved could ever really be called a microconsole. If this story turns out to be true, it has the potential to shake up both mobile and console gaming. It could easily swing the balance of exclusive games from iOS to Android, and it might force the redefinition of the eighth generation of gaming consoles to include more than products from Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo.
All that's left now is the waiting, which as Tom Petty once noted, is the hardest part. One thing is certain: Google will have an official comment if and when it's ready to show off its new game machine.
Source: http://www.gamezebo.com/news/2013/06/28/google-gaming-console-works
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The world of professional politicians and woes of Nigerians
By Adisa Adeleye
It has been a long way from the 1950s when politics was forced on the best of any community (when the best educated were begged to represent the people) to the present time when any candidate (with minimum of a school certificate) would force himself on the people as their representative.
Selection of candidates for any elective post continues to be one of the disruptive factors in the party-politics of our plural society, referred to as Nigeria.
Local politicians could amiably be described as a group of people who are motivated by the common desire to gain political power to rule. The successful ones do form the government of the locality (or country), while the less successful (less favoured ones) become the opposition. The assumption here is in a democratic environment where there is the government and a responsible opposition.
File photo: From Right, President Goodluck Jonathan and PDP National Chairman Bamanga Tukur at 61th National Executive Committee of PDP held in Abuja. Photo by Gbemiga Olamikan.
Nigerian politicians, unlike their counterparts in civilized world, and quite a departure from their predecessors of the First Republic, appear to be motivated into politics by other extraneous factors, not patriotic fervor.
People say loudly, without any equivocation, that politics is the most lucrative business in the country today.
This is evident in the life-styles of many politicians ? legislators and party office holders. The succulent nature of political life has bred a new class of professionals who see politics as a ?do or die? affair and, ready to change political garments in order to protect their personal fortunes. Perhaps, a peep into the past would tend to jerk our conscience, if there is any. Money and personal fortune seem to be the politicians? dividends of democracy.
The former Governor Chimaroke Nnamani of Enugu State, in an interview in the Comet of October, 2002, made an interesting revelation. He was reported to have said that, ?I spent a minimum of $3million to become Governor of Enugu State?. That was about N378million in 2002 or about N.5billion at today?s exchange rate.
The governor said of his angry legislators, ?we have taken care of our assembly men, pay their salaries as and when due up to the last time the civil servants were paid?. Each member receives about two hundred and fifty thousand naira take home every month. Each has a 306 Peugeot Saloon Car and we have given five hundred thousand rent allowances even though they live in government quarters, and they were also given five hundred thousand naira for vehicles and other emoluments. They were also given land as the Golf Estate Layout.
That was the politicians? paradise in 2002. What would be the situation today for our legislators, not only in Enugu State, but in all other states of the country where the ?servants? of the people have suddenly become the opulent masters of the people over the years? The unverified but other tightly guarded emoluments of legislators in state legislatures and the parliament in Abuja run into millions every month.
Many Nigerians would be severely jolted if all emoluments and salaries of Federal and State Ministers, Legislators, Advisers, Chairmen of Local Councils, Supervisors and Councilors are published for public scrutiny. Certainly, the country cannot continue to embrace legislative and executive profligacy in an atmosphere of deepening poverty of majority of Nigerians.
It is sad that the reaction of some Nigerians to poverty is escalation of fraud. According to the Central Bank Annual Report 2001, ?there were 908 reported cases of fraud and forgery involving N2.53billion, US$60.94million and ? 5289.44. Of the cases reported 402 resulted in the loss of N931.40million, $83,250 and ?5,289.44?.
The allusion to figures collated twelve years ago is to remind Nigerians (with short memories) that the financial irresponsibility has a devious history. However, the problem has been the inability of the professional politicians who constitute the ruling elites to combat the evil before it got out of control. President Jonathan to me, seems to have inherited a terrible situation, perpetuated by his predecessors. The antagonism of the present crop of Nigerians to the rising cost of running the government and rising incidents of corruption is a reminder of the fact that all is not well.
Perhaps many reasons are responsible for the inability of professional politicians to perform in (government and oppositions) of which sheepish attitude of the people and the prevalence of ?our son? mentality in body politics.? It is easy for ?our sons? to get away with many things with impunity.
A reference case is that of the 1950s when the NICHOLAS COMMISSION of enquiry set up by the Western Region Government indicted Ibadan District Council (under late Adegoke Adelabu) of corruption and mismanagement of funds.
Many Ibadan citizens condemned the findings of the enquiry because according to them, Ibadan did not complain of any missing funds.? Also, the Coker Commission of enquiry which indicted the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo and the Action Group (AG) did not go well with majority of the Yoruba at the time.? It was a case of nothing was wrong with ?our son?.
It is apparent that the lack of political sophistication among Nigerians would always prevent the emergence of visionary political leadership in the country.
Many observers believe that there is little or no difference between the governing class and the opposition ? no difference in political principle or economic approach to issues.? Perhaps that is the reason why some people are doubting the genuineness of the opposition in trying to dislodge the present regime.
The opposition parties have failed to address the problems of states as presently constituted from relying heavily on the Federal Government to meet their responsibilities.? Like the Federal Government, many states devout more than 60% of their budget to current expenditures (allocated oil money).
The hope and prayer of all Nigerians is that the present professional politicians (both in government and oppositions) should find one way or the other to ensure lasting peace and prosperity in the country.
This should not be a difficult assignment since they are all well paid.
Source: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2013/06/the-world-of-professional-politicians-and-woes-of-nigerians/
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Friday, 28 June 2013
House GOP: Senate Immigration Vote Doesn't Put Pressure On Us
WASHINGTON -- Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.) rejected the notion on Friday that House Republicans will feel pressure -- even a little -- to pass immigration reform just because the Senate passed a sweeping bill on Thursday.
"The assumption that because there's a Senate bill, the House will feel the pressure, individual members of the House will feel pressure to support that bill, frankly just is not accurate," he said at an event hosted by Bloomberg Government and the National Restaurant Association. "I think the real pressure is the pressure to fix an immigration system that's broken."
Diaz-Balart and Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), two members of a House group working on a comprehensive reform bill, said at the event that their efforts haven't stalled, despite a setback earlier this month when Rep. Raul Labrador (R-Idaho) dropped out of negotiations. Diaz-Balart is a strong supporter of immigration reform, and said he remains optimistic the House can get it done. But they're not discussing details, or how their bill might differ from the "gang of eight" bill that passed the Senate, or when the legislation will be released.
"It will be done when it is done," Lofgren said. "It's more important to get it right than to get it done by a particular deadline."
Although he wouldn't get into specifics -- the group has been impressive in its ability to keep its work quiet -- Diaz-Balart said he thinks legislation like theirs is the only thing that can pass the Republican-controlled House and the Democratic-controlled Senate. The group is working on an approach that would deal with undocumented immigrants, along with border security, enforcement and legal immigration.
The majorities in the two chambers have very different ideas about how to reform what members in both bodies consider a broken immigration system. In the House, Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), whose committee approves immigration bills, have said they favor a piecemeal approach. Democrats and those Republicans in the Senate who pushed for the gang of eight bill say a comprehensive bill is needed because the various issues on immigration are intertwined.
Although the House Judiciary Committee has considered multiple bills, none of them deal with the undocumented population other than to criminalize being in the country without status, Lofgren noted. It's possible that a path to citizenship, deemed vital by President Barack Obama and Democrats, cannot pass the House, given the Republican opposition.
"I am absolutely confident that a majority of Republicans are not going to give citizenship to 11 million illegal aliens," Rep Tim Huelskamp (R-Kan.) said Friday on the "Laura Ingraham" show.
Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-S.C.) told the National Review's Jonathan Strong that the House should "fold it up into a paper airplane and throw it out the window," referring to the Senate bill. He quipped, "Oh, is that not the right answer?"
Rep. Peter Roskam (R-Ill.), who serves in the GOP leadership, said Thursday at an event hosted by the National Review that it was "a pipe dream" to think the House would take up the gang of eight's bill.
Boehner has vowed not to break the Hastert Rule, an informal vow to take up legislation only when a majority of his conference supports it, meaning the Senate bill has very little chance of being considered. That would mean an immigration bill could be signed into law only if the chambers combine the piecemeal approach from the House and the Senate's comprehensive one.
"The House is not going to take up and vote on whatever the Senate passes," Boehner told reporters at a press conference on Thursday. "For any legislation, including a conference report, to pass the House, it's going to have to be a bill that has the support of a majority of our members," he added later, referring to Republicans.
Some House Republicans have said the chamber shouldn't pass any immigration reform bills, even if a majority of the GOP supports them, because to do so would provide an opportunity for the House and Senate to combine bills.
"I'm one of those who believes that this is fraught with peril," Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) said on the "Laura Ingraham" show Thursday, noting his was the minority view. "If we were to pass a bill that's a good bill on immigration, on enforcing and securing our borders, on whatever topic related to immigration we may want to pass a bill on, it can become a vehicle."
Senators who supported the bill hope the House can pass a bill and perhaps improve upon the Senate's bill.
"This isn't the end of the process, we're kind of at halftime," Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.), who authored a border security amendment with Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), said after the Senate vote. "So the next thing is to figure out how we get the House to engage."
Obama has promised to keep pressuring House Republicans to take up reform, as well. He spoke to Boehner and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Thursday, according to White House Press Secretary Jay Carney.
"Today, the Senate did its job," Obama said in a statement. "It's now up to the House to do the same. As this process moves forward, I urge everyone who cares about this issue to keep a watchful eye. Now is the time when opponents will try their hardest to pull this bipartisan effort apart so they can stop commonsense reform from becoming a reality. We cannot let that happen."
Lofgren, the ranking member of the House Judiciary's immigration subcommittee, said some of the bills they've taken up have been "absurd," and that, although she and Goodlatte have a good working relationship, they so far haven't worked together much on immigration.
"I am hopeful that we will have a better approach than we've had so far in the House Judiciary Committee," she said. She added that although she thinks "there was obviously an effort to have poison pills or matters that Democrats could never support ... we weren't screaming at each other. You can disagree in a professional way."
Danielle Schlanger contributed reporting.
Also on HuffPost:
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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/28/house-gop-senate-immigration_n_3517025.html
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With $38M To Play With, NumberFour Could Become A Global Business Platform
The emergence of NumberFour in Berlin - which has today announced a $38m Series A round - throws up a few interesting points worth briefly dwelling on. It may be the case that we are looking at a tipping point in the European tech startup scene, which will play out over the next few years. Indeed, this business platform may be Europe's answer to the global consumer platform created by Google and Facebook.Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/f__o4r6JEh4/
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Thursday, 27 June 2013
RolePlayGateway?
In order to be able to give us the chance for varied play and more powerful enemies, I've decided to revamp the way the Saiyans in this RP will increase in strength after each battle. Obviously, this is going to be done because if we're to reach the level of Super Saiyan anytime in the foreseeable future (which requires a power level of 1,000,000 at minimum), we'll need to beef up much faster. So, here goes nothing! If you have suggestions I'd be glad to hear them.
Obviously, these new calculations will make the inequalities in power much more prevalent, but that's where we will all have to work together and tolerate each other's differences as we continue through the RP.
As a final note, all categories include recuperation time in their calculations. None of these calculations take place immediately after battle. Using Grisha and Trish as examples, if they were given time to fully recuperate after their fights then Blaze wouldn't stand a chance against either of them. Also, victorious battles against named enemies do not stack. Obviously, if they did stack, Blaze would multiply his base power of 1030 by 29.9 bringing it all the way up to 30,797. Not quite fair, is it? So yeah, they don't stack. Only the most relevant calculation will be used, and in Blaze's case, that will be his fight with Jagoda.
(OPL - Original Power Level)
Category 1 - Victory
* Participation in (but not directly responsible for) victorious battle against named enemy = OPL * 5.3
* Victory in Battle (Random Enemy/ies) = OPL * 3.2
* Victory in Battle (With another cast member) = OPL * 7.6
* Victory in Battle (Named Enemy) = OPL * 11.5
Category 2 - Defeat (Obviously, thanks to Saiyan DNA, these will be much higher than victory calculations)
* Defeat in Battle (Random Enemy/ies) = OPL * 9.7
* Defeat in Battle (With another cast member) = OPL * 12.4
* Defeat in Battle (Named Enemy) = OPL * 16.8
* Near Death Defeat (Any Circumstance) = OPL * 25
Category 3 - Training
* Random = Random Number generator provided in the link below will be used to determine what your increase is and will be given a range determined by your base power level. Obviously, the higher your base power level, the smaller the range.
- http://www.random.org
* Special Training = Special Training is now a calculation which will become realized through direct discussion with me. You will contact me via a private message and make your initial request based on what you think would be fair and what you think your character should be able to accomplish given their location, equipment, and wether or not they have a training partner.
Source: http://feeds.feedburner.com/RolePlayGateway
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Ex-National Geographic photo chief Gilka dead at 96
(Reuters) - Robert Gilka, director of photography for National Geographic magazine for 22 years and a mentor to leading photojournalists, died on Tuesday at age 96, the National Press Photographers Association said.
He died in hospice care in Arlington, Virginia, following his third case of pneumonia this year, the NPPA said, citing photojournalist Bruce Dale.
"There is laughter and there are tears because Bob touched so many lives in remarkable ways," Chris Johns, National Geographic's editor in chief, told News Photographer magazine. "He encouraged us, set standards of excellence and instilled in us the desire to become better photographers and editors."
Many photographers considered him a legend for how he ran the photo operation at magazine renowned for its spectacular images.
In 2006, the Alexia Foundation, which promotes photojournalism, honored him with a lifetime achievement award.
Gilka was head of the Milwaukee Journal's picture desk starting in 1952 and joined the staff of National Geographic in 1958 as a picture editor, the NPPA said. He was named photography director in 1963 and retired from National Geographic in 1985.
After leaving the magazine, he was an adjunct professor of photojournalism at Syracuse University until 1992, the NPPA said.
(Reporting by Daniel Trotta in New York; Editing by Mohammad Zargham)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/ex-national-geographic-photo-chief-gilka-dead-96-010950436.html
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Your cat isn't totally ignoring you -- really!
Cats 
6 hours ago
technewsdaily.com
Cats may not do what we tell them to, but they usually adore their human caretakers, a new study finds
Cats may try to hide their true feelings, but a recent study found that cats do actually pay attention to their owners, distinguishing them from all other people.
The study, which will be published in the July issue of Animal Cognition, is one of the few to examine the cat/human social dynamic from the feline's perspective. Cats may not do what we tell them to, but they usually adore their human caretakers.
Co-author Atsuko Saito of The University of Tokyo explained to Discovery News that dogs have evolved, and are bred, "to follow their owner's orders, but cats have not been. So sometimes cats appear aloof, but they have special relationships with their owners."
NEWS: Cats Adore, Manipulate Women
"Previous studies suggest that cats have evolved to behave like kittens (around their owners), and humans treat cats similar to the way that they treat babies," co-author Kazutaka Shinozuka of the University of South Florida College of Medicine added. "To form such baby-parent like relationships, recognition of owners might be important for cats."
Their study, mostly conducted in the homes of cats so as not to unduly upset or worry the felines, determined just that.
The researchers played recordings of strangers, as well as of the cats' owners, to the felines. The cats could not see the speakers.
PHOTOS: Panthers On The Prowl
The cats responded to human voices, not by communicative behavior- such as by vocalizing or moving their tails -- but by orienting behavior. In this case, "orienting" meant that the cats moved their ears and heads toward the source of each voice.
The felines also, at times, displayed pupil dilation, which can be a sign of powerful emotions, such as arousal and excitement. Other studies have found that natural pupil dilation can be directly tied to brain activity, revealing mental reactions to emotional stimuli.
All of these reactions happened more often when cats heard their owners, and particularly after they had become habituated to, or familiar with, the strangers' voices.
The feline reactions are therefore very subtle, but cats have evolved not to be very demonstrative.
Cats, for example, hide illness because "in the wild, no one can rescue them and predators pay attention to such weak individuals," Saito said. Even though a watchful owner would try to save the cat, the feline's gut reaction is to remain stoic and avoid any possible threat at a time of vulnerability.
Felines may be hard to read sometimes, but not always. Saito said some of the cats during the study and elsewhere have "fawned over me eagerly," purring and displaying affection familiar to many other feline fanciers.
The researchers point out that, after 10,000 years of cohabitating with humans, domestic cats have the ability to communicate with us, and we seem to understand them, for the most part.
Humans who have never owned or been around cats much can pick up basic feline emotions solely by the sound of certain purrs and meows, Saito said. In studies, such people can classify the cat vocalizations according to particular situations.
Kazuo Fujita is a researcher in the Department of Psychology at Kyoto University who has also studied cats.
Fujita told Discovery News that "this is an important study" on how cats think, "which has remained mysterious due to difficulties in testing them."
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Voxer Transforms Into A Walkie-Talkie Service For The Business ...
Voxer is making its entrance into the business world with a set of new high-end features for its walkie-talkie style, push-to-talk service.
Voxer Pro and Voxer Pro For Business run on Android and iOS devices just as with the standard service. If unfamiliar, the Voxer?service is an app for sending voice and text messages. Download the app, import your contacts and then start sending messages. It?s somewhat ideal for this asynchronous world. The messages can be sent without having to make a call in order to talk on the phone. That may seem impersonal but it is a bit like keeping a correspondence with someone.
The standard app is free. Voxer?Pro is $2.99 per month or $29.99 per year. New features include an interrupt mode and, the one I love, extreme notifications, which come in as loud repetitive alerts. Voxer?Pro Business costs $4.95 per month per user until?October 1 when the price will increase to $9.95 per month per user.
Voxer?Pro Business ?also has what the company calls Voxer?Pro Manager, a desktop business communications system that provides administration control and visibility into the company?s network with a real-time map with geo-tagged location to help manage employees.
The Voxer service has amassed millions of users since its launch in 2011. It always seemed to me a bit simple and I wondered how much it would last. But how wrong I was. Apparently it has been the intent all along to offer Voxer as a business service. And what a smart move it is proving to be. In combing through all of its data, Voxer has found thousands of people who are using Voxer for their work. As Liz Gannes wrote today, about 21,000 Mary Kay Cosmetics sales people use the service. That shows how deeply voice messaging can spread into society.
It reminds me of my interview yesterday with Carlin Wiegman, the co-founder of Biba, a conferencing and messaging service. Wiegman sold his company, CubeTree, to SuccessFactors in 2010. He explained that the enterprise social networking technology developed by CubeTree, Yammer and the others in the market did very well but they all capped at tens of millions of users. He attributed that to the lack of adoption outside of the young worker set accustomed to using activity streams to message each other. But voice and text messaging has a much deeper market reach. Texting reaches hundreds of millions of people. Messaging systems have that same potential.
Just look at Voxer. In a few years it has amassed tens of millions of users. Social networking services inside the business world have taken years to reach anything near that kind of user base.
And so Voxer surfaces an interesting possibility. Is messaging the killer social enterprise app? If so, then you can expect a swarm of competitors attack this space.
But the big target for Voxer is Nextel, which has amassed a fortune with its walkie-talkie-style service. Nextel represents the old-school heavyweight enterprise systems that integrate proprietary devices for communications. Voxer is replacing the hardware with software, available across any device.
Then there are the Microsoft Lyncs and Skypes of the world, along with Cisco and the tens of thousands of apps from the Twilio ecosystem. There are even the likes of services such as Twello, the Twitter-based voice messaging platform.
It?s a crowded field but Voxer looks like it?s off to a smart start, using messaging for those everyday uses of the modern workday.
We founded Voxer with a vision to make voice communications more useful. The team behind Voxer played significant roles in building the Danger Sidekick and the Google Android platforms and worked for Apple, Google and Samsung. Voxer is a Walkie Talkie application for smartphones. Voxer lets you send instant audio, text and photo messages to your friends (one or more!). Messages stream live as you talk and your friends join you live or listen later. Voxer is available for iOS and...
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Wall Street to climb at open on central bank comments
By Chuck Mikolajczak
NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks were poised for a higher open on Tuesday, indicating the S&P 500 may stem its recent slide after comments from central bankers in the U.S. and China eased recent concerns about a credit crunch and an end to stimulus measures.
The People's Bank of China said it would not press banks too greatly in its efforts to curb easy credit as it sought to ease worries of a possible banking crisis.
The S&P 500 on Monday closed at its lowest level since April 22 after China's central bank said the country's banks need to do a better job of managing their cash and due to continued worries about a reduction in stimulus measures from the U.S. Federal Reserve.
But equities pared losses late in the session after two Fed officials downplayed the notion of an imminent end to monetary stimulus. The benchmark S&P index has fallen 4.8 percent since the Fed signaled last week that it may begin to lessen stimulus should its economic forecasts hold true, including a 1.4 percent drop the day of the announcement.
"Equities have had a healthy pullback. Ultimately, the Fed exit should be good for equities but it's going to be a difficult transition," said Troy Gayeski, Partner and Senior Portfolio Manager at SkyBridge Capital in New York.
Adding support was data showing durable goods orders increased 3.6 percent in May, above the 3 percent forecast, the latest signs of a pick-up in economic activity.
S&P 500 futures rose 12 points and were above fair value, a formula that evaluates pricing by taking into account interest rates, dividends and time to expiration on the contract. Dow Jones industrial average futures gained 92 points, and Nasdaq 100 futures added 21.75 points.
The S&P/Case Shiller composite index of house prices in 20 metropolitan areas gained 1.7 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis, topping forecasts for 1.2 percent, indicating the housing recovery continues to gain momentum.
New home sales data for May is expected along with June consumer confidence at 10 a.m. (1400 GMT). Economists in a Reuters survey forecast home sales at a total of 462,000 annualized units compared with 454,000 in April. Consumer confidence is expected to show a reading of 75.4 against the 76.2 announced in May.
Lennar Corp
Walgreen Co
Barnes & Noble Inc
(Reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama, Kenneth Barry and Nick Zieminski)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/wall-street-climb-open-central-bank-comments-132025198.html
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Pats player Hernandez taken from home in handcuffs
ATTLEBORO, Mass. (AP) ? New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez was taken from his home in handcuffs Wednesday morning, more than a week after a Boston semi-pro football player was found dead in an industrial park a mile from Hernandez's house.
Odin Lloyd, a 27-year-old semi-pro football player for the Boston Bandits, was found slain June 17. Officials ruled the death a homicide but did not say how Lloyd died.
Lloyd's relatives said he was dating the sister of Hernandez's fiancee, that the two men were friends and that both men were out together on the last night of Lloyd's life.
It's unclear why Hernandez was being taken into custody Wednesday before 9 a.m. and put into the back of a police cruiser. He was wearing a white V-neck T-shirt, with his arms inside the shirt and behind his back as he was led from his North Attleborough home. He casually spit into some bushes on his way to the car.
Hernandez was arrested on a state police warrant and was being booked at the North Attleborough police station, state police said on the agency's Twitter account. State police said they won't discuss the charge against Hernandez until it's presented in Attleboro District Court later Wednesday.
The Associated Press emailed a message to his attorney, Michael Fee, who hasn't discussed the investigation beyond acknowledging media reports about it. A message also was left with the Bristol County district attorney's office.
Lloyd's mother, Ursula Ward, declined to comment at her Boston home Wednesday morning.
"Nothing to say, please. Thank you," she said, before shutting the door.
A Patriots team spokesman said Monday morning that the team had no comment.
State police have searched in and around Hernandez's sprawling home in North Attleborough several times. At least three search warrants have been issued in connection with the investigation.
Reporters have been camped for days outside the home on the Rhode Island line, not far from the stadium where the Patriots play. They reported Tuesday that Hernandez got a visit from Boston defense attorney James Sultan.
The Patriots drafted Hernandez, who is originally from Bristol, Conn., out of the University of Florida in 2010. Last summer, the team gave him a five-year contract worth $40 million.
Patriots spokesman Stacey James has said the team did not anticipate commenting publicly during the police investigation.
___
Associated Press writers Bridget Murphy in Boston and Howard Ulman contributed to this story.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/pats-player-hernandez-taken-home-handcuffs-131332109.html
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Overweight causes heart failure: Large study with new method clarifies the association
June 25, 2013 ? An international research team led by Swedish scientists has used a new method to investigate obesity and overweight as a cause of cardiovascular disease. Strong association have been found previously, but it has not been clear whether it was overweight as such that was the cause, or if the overweight was just a marker of another underlying cause, as clinical trials with long-term follow-ups are difficult to implement.
A total of nearly 200,000 subjects were included in the researchers' study of the causality between obesity/overweight and diseases related to cardiovascular conditions and metabolism, which is being published for the first time in PLOS Medicine. The goal was to determine whether obesity as such is the actual cause of these diseases or whether obesity is simply a marker of something else in the subject's lifestyle that causes the disease.
"We knew already that obesity and cardiovascular disease often occur together. However, it has been hard to determine whether increased BMI as such is dangerous. In this study we found that individuals with gene variants that lead to increased body-mass index (BMI) also had an increased risk of heart failure and diabetes. The risk of developing diabetes was greater than was previously thought," says Tove Fall, a researcher at the Department of Medical Sciences and the Science for Life Laboratory, Uppsala University, who coordinated the study together with researchers from the Karolinska Institutet and Oxford University.
These scientists studied whether a gene variant in the FTO gene, which regulates the appetite and thereby increases the individual's BMI, is also linked to a series of cardiovascular diseases and metabolism. The risk variant is common in the population, and each copy of the risk variant increases BMI by an average of 0.3-0.4 units. Since an individual's genome is not affected by lifestyle and social factors, but rather is established at conception, when the embryo randomly receives half of each parent's genome, the method is thus called "Mendelian randomization." To achieve reliable results a large study material was needed, and nearly 200,000 individuals from Europe and Australia participated.
"Epidemiological studies look for associations in large populations, but it is usually difficult to reliably determine cause and effect -- what we call causality. By using this new genetic method, Mendelian randomization, in our research, we can now confirm what many people have long believed, that increased BMI contributes to the development of heart failure. We also found that overweight causes increases in liver enzymes . This knowledge is important, as it strengthens the evidence that forceful societal measures need to be taken to counteract the epidemic of obesity and its consequences," says Erik Ingelsson, professor at the Department of Medical Sciences and the Science for Life Laboratory, Uppsala University.
The results show that an increase of one unit of BMI increases the risk of developing heart failure by an average of 20 per cent. Further, the study also confirms that obesity leads to higher insulin values, higher blood pressure, worse cholesterol values, increased inflammation markers, and increased risk of diabetes.
The present study was carried out within the framework of the major research consortium ENGAGE, which brings together more than 35 studies and more than 130 co-authors. The study was coordinated by Erik Ingelsson's research group in collaboration with the Karolinska Institutet and Oxford University.
The study was funded by, among others, the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (ENGAGE), the Swedish Research Council, the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research, and the Swedish Heart-Lung Foundation.
Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/most_popular/~3/x3-K-iv2mww/130625172248.htm
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