Alternative Fuels Expansion With Hydrocarbons – Future of Biofuels - Popular Mechanics

Alternative Fuels Expansion With Hydrocarbons – Future of Biofuels - Popular Mechanics: "Amyris first studied the highest performing compounds of diesel, gasoline and jet fuel, then tinkered with the genetic structures of E. coli and yeast to produce bioequivalents, Renninger says, leveraging the same cutting-edge technology previously employed to produce pharmaceutical-quality medicines at commodity-level prices. The company recently announced a deal with the Brazilian sugar and ethanol manufacturer Crystalsev to launch a joint facility south of São Paulo, giving Amyris access to 2 million tons of sugar to feed its mutated strains of yeast. It projects commercial production of some 30 million gallons of diesel as early as 2010, with production of gasoline and jet fuel roughly one and two years behind, respectively."

Slavery By Another Name | Douglas A. Blackmon

The author did a session on Booktv.  This book tells the history of a massive forced labor system in the south that kept defacto slavery in effect until the beginning of WWII.  Nothing I can think of will change your view of American history as much as his work will.

Slavery By Another Name | Douglas A. Blackmon

Technorati Tags: Douglas A. Blackmon,Slavery by Another Name

Lander gets close-up of Mars dirt - Mars- msnbc.com

 

Lander gets close-up of Mars dirt - Mars- msnbc.com

 

The step by step analysis of the soil in this article shows just how much we don't know about the red planet.  Each sentence presents broad vistas of the environment on Mars.  What material will we find?  The adventure awaits.

 

Technorati Tags: Mars,soil sample

Cosmology, Astrophysics – “Stephen Hawking’s Universe” – 1/6

 

Cosmology, Astrophysics – “Stephen Hawking’s Universe” – 1/6

Stephan Hawking and others review the state of physics today.

TED | Talks | Susan Blackmore: Memes and "temes" (video)

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/269

more about "TED | Talks | Susan Blackmore: Memes ...", posted with vodpod

Proposed Tests for Dark Energy

 

Last year a committee from the National Academy of Sciences recommended that a dark energy observatory be the next mission in an astrophysics program called Beyond Einstein.

There are now three competitors angling for the job: Dr. Perlmutter’s SNAP, for Supernova Acceleration Probe; Adept, or Advanced Dark Energy Telescope, led by Charles Bennett of Johns Hopkins; and Destiny, for Dark Energy Space Telescope, led by Tod Lauer of the National Optical Astronomy Observatory in Tucson.

Also in the works, just to add spice, is a European mission known as Euclid, which could fly in 2017, if it is approved by the European Space Agency. NASA and the Department of Energy, working together, expect to make a final selection for the dark energy mission — known colloquially as J-dem for Joint Dark Energy Mission — next spring and launch it in the middle of the next decade.

That sounds like progress, but some astronomers, including the former members of the academy committee itself, have complained that $600 million is less than half of the $1.2 billion to $1.5 billion the academy committee estimated was necessary to do the job. In a recent letter to Michael Salamon, NASA scientist in charge of the project, 11 of the committee members, including both of its chairmen, urged NASA to raise the cost cap on the mission, writing, “Cutting the budget in half would probably make the attainment of these goals impossible.”

NASA’s $600 million does not include the cost of launching the satellite, so the discrepancy is not as big as it looks. But in Baltimore, Jon Morse, director of astrophysics at NASA headquarters, warned that if the astronomers wanted to spend a billion dollars, some other astronomy mission would have to come off the table.

After Years of Effort, Dark Energy Still Puzzles Scientists - NYTimes.com

Technorati Tags: Beyond Einstein,Supernova Acceleration Probe,Advanced Dark Energy Telescope,Dark Energy Space Telescope

Dark Energy - early history

 

The trouble started in 1998 when two competing teams of astronomers, one led by Saul Perlmutter of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California and the other by Brian Schmidt of the Australian National University, discovered that the expansion of the universe was inexplicably accelerating.

Both teams were using a kind of exploding star known as a Type 1a supernova as standard candles — objects whose distance can be inferred from their apparent brightness and a few other tricks of the trade — to investigate the history and fate of the universe. They found, on the basis of a few dozen of these stars, that the more distant ones were dimmer than expected, meaning that they had been carried farther away by the cosmic expansion than expected, meaning that the universe was speeding up. The car keys were streaking for the ceiling.

The groups quibble about who saw and said what first, but they have shared in a cavalcade of awards and prizes, among them the $1 million Shaw Prize in 2006 and the $500,000 Gruber Cosmology Prize, awarded last fall at Cambridge University in England, where Dr. Perlmutter and Dr. Schmidt lectured jointly, trading sentences.

Since then myriad collaborations have joined in the hunt for these exploding stars. In Baltimore, Dr. Perlmutter reported on a new analysis of “the world’s data set,” more than 300 supernovas observed by various groups, which he said would provide the tightest constraints on the nature of dark energy “for at least the next 15 minutes.”

After Years of Effort, Dark Energy Still Puzzles Scientists - NYTimes.com

Technorati Tags: dark energy,Saul Perlmutter,Brian Schmidt

Photos boost belief Mars lander has bared ice - Mars- msnbc.com

This photo could be a step to the discovery of other life forms.  If any level or biological activity is found on Mars, we have a new reality to consider.

Photos boost belief Mars lander has bared ice - Mars- msnbc.com