Try a $50 million investment on for size.

From the link:

The heads of Tesla Motors Inc. and Toyota Motors Corp. surprised the auto world Thursday by announcing a partnership to develop and build electric cars at a recently shuttered auto plant in the San Francisco Bay area.

Akio Toyoda, CEO of the world’s largest automaker, said Toyota will invest $50 million in Tesla when the company begins selling stock to the public, and Tesla CEO Elon Musk said his company will purchase the New United Motor Manufacturing Inc. factory, known as Nummi, in Fremont where the Model S electric sedan will be built.

”We’re going to create electric cars together,” Musk told a news conference at Tesla’s office in Palo Alto. ”It’s a great honor to work with a company like Toyota, one of the automobile leaders of the world and one I’ve personally long admired.”

This post is the fifth in an ongoing series highlighting the artists behind the SculptCAD Rapid Artists Project. (Hit this link for all posts related to the project.)

Shane is a contemporary artist in Dallas, Texas.  He has exhibited his work internationally in Sydney, Australia at the Paddington Contemporary Gallery and domestically at Gallery Works in Aspen, Colorado, HCG Gallery in Dallas, and his own SP Studio in Dallas, Texas.

How did you get involved with the RAPID Artists project?

I met Nancy Hairston at one of my art exhibits.  She liked my work and asked me to participate in the SculptCAD RAPID Artists Project.

Is this your first experience with 3D/digital sculpting technology and tools?

Yes.

How have these technologies changed the way you approach your process?

The technology has expanded my creative process because it has given me immediate access to materials and design in a virtual world.   Such an expansive library of options has expanded my thought process as well.  Many of the functions in the software allow you to create structures and shapes that would not be easy to create on a standard project.

Are these digital tools having an effect on the work you are creating? Are the tools aiding/adding to/hindering the process?

I have had a positive experience using the digital tools.  I did not know what to expect but as I became more familiar with the software, I was also becoming more cognizant of what tools and options I had at my fingertips.  The possibilities seem limitless.

What are your thoughts on the SculptCAD Rapid Artists Project?

I think it was an amazing project and experience.  I plan on using this technology more in my work now and in the future.

Looking beyond the project, what do you have coming up in the near future art-wise? Do you have any shows or projects planned?

I have site specific installations scheduled in Toronto, Montana, and Sydney.  I also have two upcoming shows in June and July in Dallas.

How can people interested in your work get in touch with you?

Website: www.shanepennington.com

email: [email protected]

phone: 214 564 6980

Do you have any final thoughts on the Rapid Artists Project?

Way to go!! Thanks to all that were involved and made this possible.  Special thanks to the Milwaukee School of Engineering and the University of Louisville and Forecast 3D for the printing of the SLA resin sculpture pieces. And a big thank you to Nancy Hairston and Kevin Atkins at SculptCAD for all their support within the project! … it has opened up an entire new creative realm and medium for turning ideas into art.

Here’s the digital model of

Shane’s SculptCAD Rapid Artist piece:

"Darwin's Theory" by Shane Pennington, digital model

Specifications on “Darwin’s Theory” and a statement on the piece from Shane:

Darwin’s Theory,  H 40 in x W 36 in x L 30 in, 2010, Artist: Shane Pennington

I am creating a tree and roots out of SLA White Resin to comment about the environment and the scarcity of natural rescues.  The top of the piece will be stylized cartoonish in nature and the roots will be a combination of real tree roots and synthetic roots.  Trees are the metaphor of this idea in this piece and the possibility of our need to synthetically recreate them in the future.

Head below the fold for more of Shane’s work.

Here is a still from a video piece by Shane, “Carmen’s Wish”:

Still from Carmen's Wish by Shane Pennington

Additional information on the piece:

Carmen’s Wish, Digital video mixed with acrylic on canvas, H 156 in x W 120 in, Artist: Shane Pennington

Installation at Chase Tower lobby in Dallas, Texas.

And here’s another example of Shane’s work:

"Joyous!" by Shane Pennington

More information on the piece:

Joyous!, The American Dream Series, H 120 in x W 72 in, Mixed Media Copper Wire Sculpture, 2009, Artist: Shane Pennington

Caught OK Go and Earl Greyhound last night at the Granada Theater in Dallas (sorry, but I completely missed the opening third act) and the show was great. OK Go had some recent issues with their previous label — EMI — and the current state of the recording industry, and are (at least for) now one of those DIY bands out there working without major label support and have formed their own label, Paracadute Recordings. And, at least for now the move has done nothing to lower the quality, bells or whistles of the tour. Bells — literally. They performed one song solely on handbells. Made generous use of a confetti cannon as well, plus played a great set.

Here’s a video shot at the show:

The very pleasant surprise from the show was discovering Earl Greyhound, a three-piece that puts the “power” in power trio. Imagine combining psychedelic/acid rock a la Pink Floyd before Syd Barrett was institutionalized and grunge reminiscent of Soundgarden. Great stage presence and impressively heavy.

Here’s a video for Earl Greyhound’s “S.O.S.”:

Be sure to check these guys out.

Head below the fold to see OK Go playing “What to do” on handbells.

This might possibly be the most dangerous thing you’ll see a human being do that doesn’t involve any explosive devices.

Just wow.

(Hat tip: Deadspin)

That’s how much Microsoft lost in Q3 with its the Online Services Division. (Read: Bing)

From the link:

During Microsoft’s fiscal third quarter, which ended March 31, the Online Services Division, or OSD, reported a 12 percent increase in revenue, which rose to US$566 million on the back of higher advertising revenue. That wasn’t enough to offset a surge in operating expenses during the period. The division’s quarterly loss grew by 73 percent to $713 million, compared to a loss of $411 million during the same period last year.

OSD includes Microsoft’s online advertising business, the Bing search engine, and its various MSN websites.

Get some microdot and enjoy …

Here’s news on a new artificial optical material with applications for invisibility cloaking tech and more.

From the first link:

Caltech-led team designs novel negative-index metamaterial that responds to visible light

Uniquely versatile material could be used for more efficient light collection in solar cells

		IMAGE: Arrays of coupled plasmonic coaxial waveguides offer a new approach by which to realize negative-index metamaterials that are remarkably insensitive to angle of incidence and polarization in the visible range…. Click here for more information.

PASADENA, Calif.—A group of scientists led by researchers from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) has engineered a type of artificial optical material—a metamaterial—with a particular three-dimensional structure such that light exhibits a negative index of refraction upon entering the material. In other words, this material bends light in the “wrong” direction from what normally would be expected, irrespective of the angle of the approaching light.

This new type of negative-index metamaterial (NIM), described in an advance online publication in the journal Nature Materials, is simpler than previous NIMs—requiring only a single functional layer—and yet more versatile, in that it can handle light with any polarization over a broad range of incident angles. And it can do all of this in the blue part of the visible spectrum, making it “the first negative index metamaterial to operate at visible frequencies,” says graduate student Stanley Burgos, a researcher at the Light-Material Interactions in Energy Conversion Energy Frontier Research Center at Caltech and the paper’s first author.

“By engineering a metamaterial with such properties, we are opening the door to such unusual—but potentially useful—phenomena as superlensing (high-resolution imaging past the diffraction limit), invisibility cloaking, and the synthesis of materials index-matched to air, for potential enhancement of light collection in solar cells,” says Harry Atwater, Howard Hughes Professor and professor of applied physics and materials science, director of Caltech’s Resnick Institute, founding member of the Kavli Nanoscience Institute, and leader of the research team

What makes this NIM unique, says Burgos, is its engineering. “The source of the negative-index response is fundamentally different from that of previous NIM designs,” he explains. Those previous efforts used multiple layers of “resonant elements” to refract the light in this unusual way, while this version is composed of a single layer of silver permeated with “coupled plasmonic waveguide elements.”

Surface plasmons are light waves coupled to waves of electrons at the interface between a metal and a dielectric (a non-conducting material like air). Plasmonic waveguide elements route these coupled waves through the material. Not only is this material more feasible to fabricate than those previously used, Burgos says, it also allows for simple “tuning” of the negative-index response; by changing the materials used, or the geometry of the waveguide, the NIM can be tuned to respond to a different wavelength of light coming from nearly any angle with any polarization. “By carefully engineering the coupling between such waveguide elements, it was possible to develop a material with a nearly isotopic refractive index tuned to operate at visible frequencies.”

This sort of functional flexibility is critical if the material is to be used in a wide variety of ways, says Atwater. “For practical applications, it is very important for a material’s response to be insensitive to both incidence angle and polarization,” he says. “Take eyeglasses, for example. In order for them to properly focus light reflected off an object on the back of your eye, they must be able to accept and focus light coming from a broad range of angles, independent of polarization. Said another way, their response must be nearly isotropic. Our metamaterial has the same capabilities in terms of its response to incident light.”

This means the new metamaterial is particularly well suited to use in solar cells, Atwater adds. “The fact that our NIM design is tunable means we could potentially tune its index response to better match the solar spectrum, allowing for the development of broadband wide-angle metamaterials that could enhance light collection in solar cells,” he explains. “And the fact that the metamaterial has a wide-angle response is important because it means that it can ‘accept’ light from a broad range of angles. In the case of solar cells, this means more light collection and less reflected or ‘wasted’ light.”

“This work stands out because, through careful engineering, greater simplicity has been achieved,” says Ares Rosakis, chair of the Division of Engineering and Applied Science at Caltech and Theodore von Kármán Professor of Aeronautics and Mechanical Engineering.

###

In addition to Burgos and Atwater, the other authors on the Nature Materials paper, “A single-layer wide-angle negative index metamaterial at visible frequencies,” are Rene de Waele and Albert Polman from the Foundation for Fundamental Research on Matter Institute for Atomic and Molecular Physics in Amsterdam. Their work was supported by the Energy Frontier Research Centers program of the Office of Science of the Department of Energy, the National Science Foundation, the Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek, and “NanoNed,” a nanotechnology program funded by the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs.

Visit the Caltech Media Relations website at http://media.caltech.edu.

… shoots foot.

Here’s a bad procedural move by the GOP today:

Senate Republicans on Thursday blocked an effort by Democrats to start debate on legislation to tighten regulation of the nation’s financial system, and the two sides traded bitter accusations about who was standing in the way of a bipartisan agreement.

There is some political jujitsu going on right now, and the GOP stands to lose a lot more than the financial reform debate.

Also from the link:

The majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, asked Republicans to agree to begin debating the measure, which would impose a sweeping regulatory framework on Wall Street and big financial institutions. But the Republican leader, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, objected, saying Democrats were pre-empting negotiations to reach a deal.

McConnell has a great point about negotiations, but his policy of all-out obstruction against all things Democrat in the legislature is working against him here. The Dems are very happy to force the GOP to block this move and substantially raise the floor of compromise. The longer the GOP opposes debate on the bill, the more the party appears to be in the pocket of Wall Street.

Fast forward to November and you’ll find a lot of ads hammering this point home to an electorate very, very sick of Wall Street and all things existing in the rarefied air of high finance. The economy is likely still going to be in the tank by the time election day rolls around and the GOP stands to gain, maybe gain a lot. The one thing it does not need is to be saddled with a tangible partnership with those evil-doers on Wall Street. And that is what has already started with today’s move.

Here’s the New Republic’s Jon Chait three days ago on why the Dems eagerly anticipated this move:

Chris Dodd says the Senate is going to hold a vote on his bill Wednesday or Thursday. Republicans still say they can muster 41 votes in opposition. The ideal for Democrats would be to have the whole GOP vote to filibuster the bill, then have a huge debate, and then have one or more Republicans defect and pass the bill anyway. Then you get an accomplishment and a chance to expose the GOP as carrying water for Wall Street.

Here’s the latest in dead president fashion:

And more detail from the link:

The Treasury Department unveiled what it calls “the next generation one hundred,” a redesigned $100 bank note to stay ahead of counterfeiters. The new $100 notes will be available on Feb.10, 2011.

The old bills will continue to be accepted until they wear out.

The familiar portrait of Benjamin Franklin remains in the usual spot. But a historical reference to the quill used by the Founding Fathers appears superimposed over phrases of the Declaration of Independence and a 3-D security ribbon crossing the center capture attention. The images on the ribbon move as the bill is tilted. It’s all designed to thwart attempted fakes.

Through magnetic nanodots. As the article covers, this advancement is in RAM.

From the link:

Using magnetic nanodots in the vortex state, researchers have designed a new kind of non-volatile memory that could offer increased speed and density for next-generation non-volatile random access memories (RAM). The new design takes advantage of magnetic vortices’ ability to store binary information as positive or negative core polarities, which can be controlled by simply changing the frequency of the rotating vortex cores of the nanodots.

The new technique, called frequency-controlled magnetic vortex memory, was developed by a team of researchers, B. Pigeau, et al., from France, Germany, and the US. Their study is published in a recent issue of Applied Physics Letters.

As the researchers explain, the concept of using magnetic nano-objects to store binary information for magnetic RAM has previously been investigated, but it’s been difficult to find a mechanism to reverse the magnetization inside individual nano-objects. Here, the researchers achieve this reversal by using microwave pulses in combination with a static magnetic field. In this scheme, large and small rotating core frequencies are associated with positive and negative core polarities, respectively. In a positive core polarity, the core is parallel to the applied magnetic field, while in a negative core polarity, the core is antiparallel to the applied magnetic field. An extremely sensitive magnetic resonance force microscope (MRFM) is used to address the resonant frequency of magnetic nanodots’ vortex core rotations, allowing the researchers to control the polarity states of individual nanodots.

This is the first quantum computing post in a couple of months. This is a promising finding.

The release:

Bizarre matter could find use in quantum computers

Rice physicists: Odd electron mix has fault-tolerant quantum registry

		IMAGE: From left, Rice physicist Rui-Rui Du, graduate students Chi Zhang and Yanhua Dai, and former postdoctoral researcher Tauno Knuuttila (not pictured) have found that odd groupings of ultracold electrons could… Click here for more information.

HOUSTON — (April 21, 2010) — There are enticing new findings this week in the worldwide search for materials that support fault-tolerant quantum computing. New results from Rice University and Princeton University indicate that a bizarre state of matter that acts like a particle with one-quarter electron charge also has a “quantum registry” that is immune to information loss from external perturbations.

The research appeared online April 21 in Physical Review Letters. The team of physicists found that ultracold mixes of electrons caught in magnetic traps could have the necessary properties for constructing fault-tolerant quantum computers — future computers that could be far more powerful than today’s computers. The mixes of electrons are dubbed “5/2 quantum Hall liquids” in reference to the unusual quantum properties that describe their makeup.

“The big goal, the whole driving force, besides deep academic curiosity, is to build a quantum computer out of this,” said the study’s lead author Rui-Rui Du, professor of physics at Rice. “The key for that is whether these 5/2 liquids have ‘topological’ properties that would render them immune to the sorts of quantum perturbations that could cause information degradation in a quantum computer.”

Du said the team’s results indicate the 5/2 liquids have the desired properties. In the parlance of condensed-matter physics, they are said to represent a “non-Abelian” state of matter.

Non-Abelian is a mathematical term for a system with “noncommutative” properties. In math, commutative operations, like addition, are those that have the same outcome regardless of the order in which they are carried out. So, one plus two equals three, just as two plus one equals three. In daily life, commutative and noncommutative tasks are commonplace. For example, when doing the laundry, it doesn’t matter if the detergent is added before the water or the water before the detergent, but it does matter if the clothes are washed before they’re placed in the dryer.

“It will take a while to fully understand the complete implications of our results, but it is clear that we have nailed down the evidence for ’spin polarization,’ which is one of the two necessary conditions that must be proved to show that the 5/2 liquids are non-Abelian,” Du said. “Other research teams have been tackling the second condition, the one-quarter charge, in previous experiments.”

The importance of the noncommutative quantum properties is best understood within the context of fault-tolerant quantum computers, a fundamentally new type of computer that hasn’t been built yet.

Computers today are binary. Their electrical circuits, which can be open or closed, represent the ones and zeros in binary bits of information. In quantum computers, scientists hope to use “quantum bits,” or qubits. Unlike binary ones and zeros, the qubits can be thought of as little arrows that represent the position of a bit of quantum matter. The arrow might represent a one if it points straight up or a zero if it points straight down, but it could also represent any number in between. In physics parlance, these arrows are called quantum “states.” And for certain complex calculations, being able to represent information in many different states would present a great advantage over binary computing.

The upshot of the 5/2 liquids being non-Abelian is that they have a sort of “quantum registry,” where information doesn’t change due to external quantum perturbations.

“In a way, they have internal memory of their previous state,” Du said.

The conditions needed to create the 5/2 liquids are extreme. At Rice, Tauno Knuuttila, a former postdoctoral research scientist in Du’s group, spent several years building the “demagnetization refrigerator” needed to cool 5-millimeter squares of ultrapure semiconductors to within one-10,000th of a degree of absolute zero. It took a week for Knuuttila to simply cool the nearly one-ton instrument to the necessary temperature for the Rice experiments.

The gallium arsenide semiconductors used in the tests are the most pure on the planet. They were created by Loren Pfieiffer, Du’s longtime collaborator at Princeton and Bell Labs. Rice graduate student Chi Zhang conducted additional tests at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory in Tallahassee, Fla., to verify that the 5/2 liquid was spin- polarized.

###

Study co-authors include Zhang, Knuuttila, Pfeiffer, Princeton’s Ken West and Rice’s Yanhua Dai. The research is supported by the Department of Energy, the National Science Foundation and the Keck Foundation.

Looks like more so than carbon nanotubes. This attribute is key to using the material in electronic devices such as actuators, valves in labs-on-a-chip and electronic paper.

From the link:

Physicists at UC San Diego and Boston University think so. In a paper published in the journal Physical Review B, the scientists say the propensity of graphene—a single layer of carbon atoms arranged in a honeycomb lattice— to stick to itself and form carbon “nanoscrolls” could be controlled electrostatically to form a myriad of new devices.

Unlike carbon nanotubes—cylindrical molecules of pure carbon with novel properties that have become the focus of much of the attention of new application in electronics and materials development—carbon nanoscrolls retain open edges and have no caps.

“As a result, nanoscrolls can change their shape and their inner and outer diameters, while nanotubes cannot,” said Michael Fogler, an associate professor of physics at UCSD and the first author of the paper.

And Avatar comes out on DVD. (BTW — don’t shy away from the DVD or Blu -ray just because it’s not in IMAX 3D. I caught a pre-street of the DVD over the weekend and it was great.)

Here’s a link more appropriate for Earth Day.

The release:

Expert commentary on Earth Day’s 40th anniversary

Presented in Sustainability: The Journal of Record; Environmental Justice; and Ecopsychology

New Rochelle, NY, April 21, 2010— In recognition of Earth Day’s 40th anniversary, publisher Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. (www.liebertpub.com) will provide complimentary online access to its journals in the field of sustainability, including Sustainability: The Journal of Record; Environmental Justice; and Ecopsychology through May 15. Each journal provides cutting-edge information about sustainability initiatives, the relationship between mankind and nature, and the protection of our citizens and our planet.

In this month’s issue of Sustainability: The Journal of Record (www.liebertpub.com/sus), Ray Anderson, the Founder and Chairman of Interface, reflects on “Earth Day, Then and Now.” “In the Green” reports on what a number of organizations and institutions are doing to commemorate this auspicious anniversary, including Major League Baseball, Walt Disney Studios, Dow Chemical Co., and Northwestern University. The Journal documents the implementation of sustainability programs in higher education and business, and provides the central forum for academic institutions, the business community, foundations, government agencies, and leaders of green-collar endeavors to learn about one another’s progress and programs and foster collaborations for attaining mutually supportive objectives.

Environmental Justice offers a provocative view of “Earth Day at the Crossroads of Sustainability and Justice,” with contributions by Editor-in-Chief Sylvia Hood Washington, PhD, MSE, MPH, University of Illinois at Chicago, David Naguib Pellow, PhD, University of Minnesota, and Kristen Schrader-Frechette, PhD, University of Notre Dame, among others.

Now in its third year, Environmental Justice (www.liebertpub.com/env)explores the adverse and disparate environmental burden impacting marginalized populations and communities all over the world.

Articles in Ecopsychology (www.liebertpub.com/eco), edited by Thomas Joseph Doherty, PsyD, explore the relationship between environmental issues and mental health and well-being, and examine the psychological, spiritual, and therapeutic aspects of human-nature relationships, concern about environmental issues, and responsibility for protecting natural places and other species.

###

Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. is a privately held, fully integrated media company known for establishing authoritative peer-reviewed journals in many promising areas of science, medicine, biomedical research, and law, including Industrial Biotechnology, Environmental Engineering Science, andBiosecurity and Bioterrorism. Its biotechnology trade magazine, Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News (GEN), was the first in its field and is today the industry’s most widely read publication worldwide. A complete list of the firm’s 60 journals, books, and newsmagazines is available at www.liebertpub.com.

Privacy issues. I consider privacy the big bugaboo of cloud computing in general, and the simple nature of Google’s Chrome operating system and the company’s penchant for (really its corporate raison d’etre) data mining the potential for serious abuse of user data is there.

I don’t have a problem with all data mining and I certainly understand what Google does and why. I absolutely love the Chrome browser and recommend it for everyone, and I use Gmail for a number of secondary email accounts, but I’m not even close to ready to trusting all my data by a cloud controlled by Google, or any other entity for that matter.

From the link:

The naming scheme is no accident. It reflects Google’s ambition to create an operating system that is all but indistinguishable from the browser. Gone will be the normal files, directories, and applications. Instead, Chrome OS will put Google’s cloud computing infrastructure–services and applications delivered over the Internet from its vast array of servers–at the heart of practically everything you do. Within a few years, Chrome OS could become the planet’s simplest, fastest, and safest environment for personal computing. But there’s a catch: it will also make Google the gatekeeper of your personal information. It could let Google delve further into your data to make its online advertising business more profitable than ever.

There is one upside — your “backup” data is located in your computer, so when it craps out the real data still resides on Google’s servers and isn’t lost. That alone might make the Chrome OS attractive to some people.

Also from the link:

Google’s engineers have explained that Chrome OS will use your computer’s hard drive as a cache, making copies of whatever you’re working on so that you won’t burn up your netbook’s wireless data plan (or your batteries). All that personal data will be encrypted, so you won’t need to worry if you happen to lose the machine. And if for some reason your computer gets corrupted–perhaps by a virus–you’ll be able to wipe it and start over without losing any work at all, since your data is stored in the cloud.

Yesterday I blogged about an efficiency breakthrough in thin-film solar cells, and now here’s more news on a cost breakthrough. I’m going to quote myself from the earlier post, “I keep hammering on the same point, but cost and efficiency in combination are the key to making solar a commercially viable option.” Be sure to hit the solar link in the “Interesting Blog Topics” box over on the sidebar for all my solar power blogging.

From the second link:

Advance made in thin-film solar cell technology

CORVALLIS, Ore. – Researchers have made an important breakthrough in the use of continuous flow microreactors to produce thin film absorbers for solar cells – an innovative technology that could significantly reduce the cost of solar energy devices and reduce material waste.

The advance was just reported in Current Applied Physics, a professional journal, by engineers from Oregon State University and Yeungnam University in Korea.

This is one of the first demonstrations that this type of technology, which is safer, faster and more economical than previous chemical solution approaches, could be used to continuously and rapidly deposit thin film absorbers for solar cells from such compounds as copper indium diselenide.

Previous approaches to use this compound – which is one of the leading photovoltaic alternatives to silicon-based solar energy devices – have depended on methods such as sputtering, evaporation, and electrodeposition. Those processes can be time-consuming, or require expensive vacuum systems or exotic chemicals that raise production costs.

Chemical bath deposition is a low-cost deposition technique that was developed more than a century ago. It is normally performed as a batch process, but changes in the growth solution over time make it difficult to control thickness. The depletion of reactants also limits the achievable thickness.

The technology invented at Oregon State University to deposit “nanostructure films” on various surfaces in a continuous flow microreactor, however, addresses some of these issues and makes the use of this process more commercially practical. A patent has been applied for on this approach, officials said.

“We’ve now demonstrated that this system can produce thin-film solar absorbers on a glass substrate in a short time, and that’s quite significant,” said Chih-hung Chang, an associate professor in the OSU School of Chemical, Biological and Environmental Engineering. “That’s the first time this has been done with this new technique.”

Further work is still needed on process control, testing of the finished solar cell, improving its efficiency to rival that of vacuum-based technology, and scaling up the process to a commercial application, Chang said.

Of some interest, researchers said, is that thin-film solar cells produced by applications such as this could ultimately be used in the creation of solar energy roofing systems. Conceptually, instead of adding solar panels on top of the roof of a residential or industrial building, the solar panel itself would become the roof, eliminating such traditional approaches as plywood and shingles.

“If we could produce roofing products that cost-effectively produced solar energy at the same time, that would be a game changer,” Chang said. “Thin film solar cells are one way that might work. All solar applications are ultimately a function of efficiency, cost and environmental safety, and these products might offer all of that.”

The research has been supported by the Process and Reaction Engineering Program of the National Science Foundation.

Related technology was also developed recently at OSU using nanostructure films as coatings for eyeglasses, which may cost less and work better than existing approaches. In that case, they would help capture more light, reduce glare and also reduce exposure to ultraviolet light. Scientists believe applications in cameras and other types of lenses are also possible.

More work such as this is expected to emerge from the new Oregon Process Innovation Center for Sustainable Solar Cell Manufacturing, a $2.7 million initiative based at OSU that will include the efforts of about 20 faculty from OSU, the University of Oregon, Portland State University and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.

Organizers of that initiative say they are aiming for “a revolution in solar cell processing and manufacturing” that might drop costs by as much as 50 percent while being more environmentally sensitive. In the process, they hope to create new jobs and industries in the Pacific Northwest.

###

Research has found carbon nanotubes can help the body’s immune system fight cancer. Hit this link for all my cancer-related nanotechnology blogging.

From the first link:

Carbon nanotubes boost cancer-fighting cells

New Haven, Conn.—Yale University engineers have found that the defects in carbon nanotubes cause T cell antigens to cluster in the blood and stimulate the body’s natural immune response. Their findings, which appear as the cover article of the April 20 issue of the journal Langmuir, could improve current adoptive immunotherapy, a treatment used to boost the body’s ability to fight cancer.

Adoptive immunotherapy involves extracting a patient’s blood so that the number of naturally occurring T cells (a type of white blood cell) can reproduce more effectively in the laboratory. Although the body produces its own tumor-fighting T cells, they are often suppressed by the tumor and are too few to be effective. Scientists boost the production of T cells outside the body using different substances that encourage T cell antigens to cluster in high concentrations. The better these substances are at clustering T cell antigens, the greater the immune cell proliferation. Once enough T cells are produced, the blood is transferred back into the patient’s body.

The Yale team had previously reported the unexpected effect that carbon nanotubes had on T cell production. They found that the antigens, when presented on the surface of the nanotubes, stimulated T cell response far more effectively than coating other substrates such as polystyrene in the antigens, even though the total amount of antigens used remained the same.

Now they have discovered the reason behind the increased stimulation. They found that the antigens cluster in high concentrations around the tiny defects found in the carbon nanotubes.

“Carbon nanotube bundles resemble a lymph node microenvironment, which has a labyrinth sort of geometry,” said Tarek Fahmy, associate professor of chemical engineering and biomedical engineering at Yale and senior author of the paper. “The nanotube bundles seem to mimic the physiology and adsorb more antigens, promoting a greater immunological response.”

Current adoptive immunotherapy takes weeks to produce enough T cells, but lab tests showed that the nanotubes produced the same T cell concentration in just one-third the time, Fahmy said.

Carbon nanotubes can cause problems, such as an embolism, when used in the body. But this isn’t the case when they are used in blood that has been extracted from the patient, Fahmy said. Next, the team will work on a way to effectively remove the carbon nanotubes from the blood before it is returned to the patient.

“We think this is a really interesting use of carbon nanotubes. It’s a way to exploit the unique properties of this material for biological application in a safe way.”

###

Other authors of the paper include lead author Tarek Fadel, Michael Look, Peter Staffier, Gary Haller and Lisa Pfefferle, all of the Yale School of Engineering & Applied Science.

Here you go:

Caption: The MODIS instrument on NASA’s Terra satellite captured a visible image of the ash plume (brown) drifting south and east from Eyjafjallajökull volcano in Iceland at 11:55 UTC (7:55 a.m. EDT).

Credit: NASA’s MODIS Rapid Response Team

For more information, here’s the full release accompanying this image.

News from Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt on plasmonics in graphene.

The release:

Graphene: What projections and humps can be good for

Investigators from Hanover and Braunschweig measure how the electronic properties of graphene can be controlled with purposefully used roughnesses

This release is available in German.

		IMAGE: A residual interaction with the SiC substrate causes the formation of the six-fold satellite reflex structure. Click here for more information.

At present, graphene probably is the most investigated new material system worldwide. Due to its astonishing mechanical, chemical and electronic properties, it promises manifold future applications – for example in microelectronics. The electrons in graphene are particularly movable and could, therefore, replace silicon which is used today as the basic material of fast computer chips. In a research cooperation, scientists of Leibniz University Hanover and of the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB) have now investigated in which way a rough base affects the electronic properties of the graphene layer. Their results suggest that it will soon be possible to control plasmons, i.e. collective oscillations of electrons, purposefully in the graphene, by virtually establishing a lane composed of projections and humps for them. The results were published in the current edition of the New Journal of Physics.

The structure of graphene itself is fascinating: It consists of exactly one single, regular layer of carbon atoms. To manufacture this incredibly thin layer absolutely neatly is a great challenge. A possible method to recipitate graphene extensively on an insulating substrate is epitaxy, i.e. the controlled growth of graphene on insulating silicon carbide. For this purpose, a silicon carbide crystal is heated in vacuum. Starting from a specific temperature, carbon atoms migrate to the surface and form a monoatomic layer on the – still solid – silicon carbide. An important question for later applications is, how defects and steps of the silicon carbide surface affect the electronic properties of the graphene grown on it.

Within the scope of a research cooperation between PTB and Leibniz University Hanover, the influence of defects in the graphene on the electronic properties has been investigated. During the investigations, special attention was paid to the influence of the defects on a special electronic excitation, the so-called plasmons.

By different sample preparation, first of all silicon carbide crystals with different surface roughness and, thus, with a different concentration of surface defects were investigated, on which, subsequently, graphene formed. The influence of the defects on the plasmon excitations was then investigated by means of low-energy electron diffraction (SPA-LEED) and electron loss spectroscopy (EELS).

The process revealed a strong dependence of the lifetime of plasmon on the surface quality. Defects, as they are caused on step edges and grain boundaries, strongly impede the propagation of the plasmons and drastically shorten their lifetime. Here it is remarkable that the other electronic properties of the plasmons, in particular their dispersion, remain largely unaffected.

This opens up interesting possibilities for the future technical application and use of plasmons (the so-called “plasmonics”) in graphene. By selective adjustment of the surface roughness, different graphene ranges could be generated in which the plasmons are either strongly dampened or can propagate almost unobstructedly. In this way, the plasmons could be conducted along “plasmon conductors” with low surface roughness specifically from one point of a graphene chip to another.

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Original publication:
T. Langer, J. Baringhaus, H. Pfnür, H. W. Schumacher and C. Tegenkamp:
“Plasmon damping below the Landau regime: the role of defects in epitaxial graphene”.
New Journal of Physics 12, 033017 (2010).
http://iopscience.iop.org/1367-2630/12/3/033017/

… a self-piloting flying car.

Via KurzweilAI.net:

DARPA announces plans for self-piloted flying car

Physorg.com, Apr. 19, 2010 DARPA announced that it is inviting proposals to tackle its latest project: Transformer X, a “vertical takeoff and landing roadable air vehicle” ready for testing by 2015. It would have a maximum payload capacity of 1,000 pounds so that it can carry four passengers and their gear, be capable of flying itself automatically, achieving an altitude of 1,000 feet, and traveling 250 miles on a single tank of fuel. The Terrafugia Transition roadable aircraft, tested last year, lacks autopilot and off-road features. Read Original Article>>

Fascinating research on the upper limit of light absorption by solar cells. Utilizing nanophotonic technology and thin-film solar cells, the efficiency is given an impressive boost. I keep hammering on the same point, but cost and efficiency in combination are the key to making solar a commercially viable option. Throw in some short-term government subsidies (I know, I know) and we are getting close to that sweet spot.

From the link:

But things have changed since the 1980s, not least because it is now possible to make layers of silicon much thinner than the wavelength of the light they are expected to absorb and to carve intricate patterns in these layers. How does this nanophotonic technology change the effect of light trapping?

Today, Zongfu Yu and buddies at Stanford University in California, tackle this question and say that nanophotonics dramatically changes the game.

That’s basically because light trapping works in a different way on these scales. Instead of total internal reflection, light becomes trapped on the surface of nanolayers, which act like waveguides. This increases the amount of time the photons spend in the material and so also improves the chances of absorption.

Because of the geometry of the layers, some wavelengths are trapped better than others and this gives rise to resonances at certain frequencies.

What Yu and co show is that by designing the layers in a way that traps light effectively, it is possible to beat the old limit by a substantial margin.

Also from the link:

Physicists have long known that thinner solar cells are better in a number of ways: they use less material and so are cheaper to make and the electrons they produce are easier to collect making them potentially more efficient. Now they know that light trapping is more effective in thinner layers too.