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That’s the Air Force‘s super-secret unmanned X-37B space plane hitching a ride on an Atlas V rocket yesterday. No one knows what its mission is. Or even when it’s coming back. More »

The Academic Careers in Engineering & Science program (ACES+) recently announced recipients of the 2010 ADVANCE Opportunity Awards. Fourteen proposals representing academic disciplines ranging from engineering to religious studies to sociology received $41,667.

“We’re thrilled to have the support of President Barbara R. Snyder and Provost Bud Baeslack to continue these awards,” said Lynn Singer, deputy provost and vice president for academic programs. ADVANCE Opportunity Awards also receive funding through the National Science Foundation ADVANCE program.

Advance Opportunity Grants provide small amounts of supplemental support of current or proposed projects and activities where funding is difficult to obtain through other sources. All Case Western Reserve University faculty members are eligible to apply.

According to the Office of the Provost, the following is a list of 2010 ADVANCE Opportunity Award winners and information about their projects:

Alexis Abramson, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, College of Arts and Sciences

Award: $1,771 to support travel to attend and present work at two national conferences.

Karen Beckwith, Department of Political Science, College of Arts and Sciences

Award: $3,258 to develop a database and to purchase statistical software for data collection, coding and analysis for a new project.

Diane M. Bergeron, Department of Organizational Behavior, Weatherhead School of Management

Award: $6,500 to provide summer support for two doctoral research assistants working on a project.

Joy R. Bostic, Department of Religious Studies, College of Arts and Sciences

Award: $3,630 to support research on activism in African American mystical traditions, including travel to investigate original manuscripts, data collection and materials documentation.

Clemens Burda, Department of Chemistry, College of Arts and Sciences

Award: $1,500 to support child care during a three-month research visit during a sabbatical leave.

T. Kenny Fountain, Department of English, College of Arts and Sciences

Award: $1,300 to support a student assistant to aid in transcription and data analysis of audio data for preparation of a book manuscript.

Victor Groza, Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences

Award: $2,800 to support international travel to train interviewers in an ethnosurvey approach to expand an ongoing study.

Gladys Haddad, Western Reserve Studies Symposium, College of Arts and Sciences

Award: $2,000 to seed funding for program design and implementation for the East Cleveland Neighborhood Project.

Charles J. Love, Department of Comprehensive Care, School of Dental Medicine

Award: $1,996 to support travel to an international conference to disseminate research findings.

Heidi B. Martin, Department of Chemical Engineering, Case School of Engineering

Award: $6,000 for short-term funding to support a graduate student stipend for a four-month period.

Heather Morrison, Department of Astronomy, College of Arts and Sciences

Award: $2,000 in travel support to seed a collaboration with researchers from China for a survey project on the Milky Way.

Ronald G. Oldfield, Department of Biology, College of Arts and Sciences

Award: $5,000 to support a research visit to research a publication.

Robert Spadoni, Department of English, College of Arts and Sciences

Award: $505 to support travel to a national society meeting for participation in a panel discussion related to a new book project.

David F. Warner, Department of Sociology, College of Arts and Sciences

Award: $3,407 to support a specialized training course to enable an expanded research project.

For more information contact Kimyette Finley, 216.368.0521.

Kurt Cobb has an article at Scitizen on a new enhanced oil recovery technique (saying nothing about the greenhouse gas emissions, which are presumably horrendous) – Will Toe-to-Heel Air Injection Extend the Oil Age?.

Currently, the energy for extracting oil from underground must come from the fuel and equipment on the surface. But what if the main source of energy for extracting oil could come from the oil deposit itself? And, what if the method for doing this could provide us with access to oil not amenable to conventional extraction techniques while minimizing disruption of the surface and any associated pollution? This is what the developers of an oil recovery technique called toe-to-heel air injection or THAI suggest they are able to accomplish. And, the technique could increase appreciably the percentage of the world’s vast heavy oil resources that we are able to exploit.

The oil the engineers and scientists at Petrobank, the patent holder, have in mind is so viscous that it is not easily budged from its hiding places below the surface. There are other techniques already in use for extracting this oil. But they typically require copious amounts of both water (usually in the form of steam) and energy to work. The THAI process, however, burns some of the oil in the underground deposit in a way that makes the remaining oil flow to the surface on its own through production wells.

This isn’t a bonfire, but rather more like a charcoal fire, very hot (400 to 600 degrees C) without flames. Petrobank claims that THAI burns about 10 percent of the oil in place to accomplish its task. The oil is first heated to about 100 degrees C using steam injection. So far this sounds like conventional steam injection technology. But once this critical temperature is reached, the oil is ignited and only air is injected to keep the oil burning. The burning oil creates additional heat which makes the heavy oil flow more easily, and the combustion gases drive the flowing oil toward and up a set of production wells without any pumping. There are other fire flooding techniques. But the particular methods and well configuration of THAI hold great promise for vastly increasing ultimate recovery while minimizing pollution and well failure.

Petrobank claims recovery of between 70 and 80 percent of original oil in place, a truly astounding number. Even if this result proves to be reproducible on a large scale, it won’t mean that all heavy oil deposits will be amenable to the THAI process. Some deposits might be too scattered to be economical. Others might not be sufficiently saturated to allow adequate burning and thus high enough temperatures. Yet others might be too close to the surface in which case the fire might break through. Finally, geology, remote location and poor associated infrastructure might make many potential deposits financially too risky to exploit.

Twitter, like Android, is exploding.  The latest entry into the Android twitterverse is from sobees.  Many of you might already be familiar with Sobees desktop and web apps, but their application for Android is all new. 

Follow after the break for a video and my impressions of the new Sobees twitter application.

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Earlier this year, we wrote about Vision Media TV, a company that appeared to be participating in a questionable game of convincing non-profit organizations to pay tens of thousands of dollars to be featured in a television program with broadcaster Hugh Downs that would appear on “public television.” The implication is that these shows will air on PBS, but that’s not the case. In fact, PBS has a warning on its website telling people it’s not associated with these offerings at all. We’ve even been approached by similar offerings (though, not involving Hugh Downs — and the one where we were approached involved getting an “award” for “best small business” or something similar). About a year and a half ago, the NY Times wrote an article trashing Vision Media TV. The company insisted that the article was false and defamatory but, tellingly, chose not to sue.

Instead, it later sued the small site 800notes.com, because some people there had written negatively about Vision Media TV in explaining who was calling from Vision Media’s phone number. Paul Alan Levy, from Public Citizen, who is defending 800Notes, also found himself targeted, after Vision Media sought to bar him from posting public documents about the case on Public Citizen’s website — an attempt that failed. Of course, it did help Levy find more info about the company, including that similar pitches have come from differently named companies, using the same address as Vision Media TV, that pitched (instead of Hugh Downs), Walter Cronkite and Mike Douglas — both of whom ended up suing the company, claiming they were misled by the company.

Levy says he’s asked Vision Media why it never sued the NY Times over its article, and the company’s lawyer responded “I should have,” but supposedly the statute of limitations had already passed. Well, now Levy is pointing out that Vision Media has a second chance to sue a big media player, since NPR just did a devastating takedown of Vision Media TV and its practices:

“They are selling something that they generally cannot deliver,” says Garry Denny, program director of Wisconsin Public Television and a past president of the professional association of programming officials for PBS member stations. “In fact, they are probably not carried by any public television station around the country.”

Officials at PBS and at PBS member stations in California, Colorado, Kentucky, New York, South Carolina and Virginia were all aware of the Hugh Downs spots. Yet not one knew of a concrete instance in which the spots featuring Downs appeared on their stations or those of others. PBS and its member stations say they adhere to guidelines banning marketing programming paid for by subjects of the programs.

To be fair, the article and Vision Media point out that the videos can be useful as marketing materials or infomercials even if they don’t appear on public television — but the whole pitch involving Hugh Downs is where things get questionable. His contract only lets him be involved if the stuff is on public television, and the marketing focuses on Downs involvement, even if that’s unlikely to happen for most organizations who pay up — which certainly suggests misleading marketing:

According to both Downs’ agent and Vision Media’s Miller, the retired anchor’s contract limits his involvement to public television. Yet for many people approached by Vision Media’s cold-calling pitchmen, he’s by far the strongest selling point.

One of the firms recently pitched is Portland, Maine-based Putney Inc., which develops generic drugs for pets. “Hugh Downs! I know that name,” said Jean Hoffman, Putney’s CEO. “We were of course pretty excited, pretty interested, and pretty eager to cooperate.”

It seemed like a splendid opportunity, until Hoffman and her colleagues started to bore in on the details. “They send the signal that they’re doing a story” as journalists, Hoffman said. “Then, they try to sell us what under questioning was revealed to be advertising.”

Others, who did buy into the videos, claim that the pitch about public television was what got them interested in the first place:

Robert Biggins is past president of the funeral director trade group and owner of a funeral home in Rockland, Mass. He said Vision Media’s promise of a presence on public television and the involvement of Downs were crucial.

“He brings a credibility in reporting,” Biggins said. “I felt that dealing with an organization that he’s so intimately involved in gave us the opportunity to share our message, and to do so in a warm and gracious manner.”

If their spots did not air on public television, Biggins said, “That would be a serious concern.”

The National Funeral Directors Association provided NPR with a copy of the contract it signed with Vision Media. The association paid $22,900 in 2007 for the production of different versions of the spot, plus an additional $3,000 as a “location fee” — presumably for travel costs. The contract and additional material from Patrick Wilson of American Artists, the segments’ distributor, stated the “estimated reach is over 40 million households” on public television stations. The brochure also suggests the spots will reach 84 million households nationwide on cable — the overwhelming majority of all homes subscribing to cable television.

So, if Vision Media’s lawyer said he wished he had sued the NY Times over a very similar article from a couple years ago, will he now sue NPR? Or is it easier to focus on small sites with much smaller budgets?

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The New York Times has a look at the past and future of tidal power in Maine – Generating Megawatts Like Clockwork.

WHEN Christopher R. Sauer stands before the swirling waters of the Western Passage and describes his company’s alternative energy vision, he doesn’t see an army of wind turbines or banks of solar cells.

In fact, Mr. Sauer sees nothing at all that could block his view of Canada, just across the channel. For if his plans come to fruition, an array of turbines will be operating out of sight, deep under the water, cranking out power to a substation on shore.

His company, Ocean Renewable Power, is one of a number of start-ups trying to develop tidal energy — water-powered turbines that spin in the current as the tides come and go, turning generators to make electricity that is clean and, they hope, reasonably priced.

“We’re not going to beat out the old coal plants in the Ohio Valley,” said Mr. Sauer, who has decades of experience developing co-generation plants and other power projects. “But we will be competitive with any new power source, including fossil fuels.”

That’s an ambitious goal, but Mr. Sauer, the company’s president and chief executive, has at least gravity and the earth’s rotational energy on his side.

Tides come and go twice a day everywhere around the globe. In places like Eastport — a former sardine capital at the mouth of the Bay of Fundy that is surrounded by deep channels like the Western Passage — tidal power makes the most sense, at least for the moment.

Here the tides are very high and the current strong, reaching about 6 knots, or 7 miles per hour, at peak flows four times a day. “We’ve got the best tidal current on the East Coast,” Mr. Sauer said.

Tidal power is not a new idea. A few tidal generating stations are already operating around the world, including one in France that is more than four decades old. But they represent an older approach, one that employs barrages, or dams, to hold back the high tide. The water is then released through turbines, like a conventional hydroelectric plant, when the tide goes out.

Eastport itself was the site of an elaborate and enormous barrage project, proposed in the 1930s during the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt, who knew of the great tides here, having spent many summers on Campobello Island nearby. The project, the East Coast’s answer to Hoover Dam, was abandoned after a year.

The Obama administration’s special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan will soon augment his team with one of the senior-most officials responsible for implementing the civilian surge on the ground. Frank Ruggiero, who oversees 110 U.S. and allied civilians in southern Afghanistan, is set to become Amb. Richard Holbrooke’s deputy this summer, State Department officials confirmed.

Ruggiero is a well-respected career civil servant who’s worked with the Department of Commerce as well as the State Department, where he’s most recently been at the top of the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs before heading to Afghanistan last summer. As part of the “civilian uplift,” Ruggiero has established and coordinated small teams of civilians in Helmand and Kandahar provinces known as District Support Teams to embed with NATO military battalions in order to assist Afghan officials with delivering services for local citizens in order to reduce the demand for the Taliban’s shadow governance.  While the hundred-plus civilians on Ruggiero’s team is up from fewer than ten civilians in southern Afghanistan before Ruggiero arrived, the effort still dwarfed by the thousands of U.S. Marines, soldiers, NATO troops and still-arriving U.S. forces as part of the “extended surge” focusing on the south of the country.

Still, Ruggiero should be able to provide Holbrooke, Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton and President Obama with ground-truth visibility on the difficulties and possibilities of fostering credible, deliverable governance for Afghans in the south, a centerpiece of U.S. strategy in Afghanistan. That’s especially salient since Clinton indicated today at a NATO conference that the civilian presence in Afghanistan will outlast the U.S. military’s post-2011 drawdown.

Thousands of finance ministers and central bankers from around the world descend on D.C. this weekend for the semi-annual meetings of the World Bank Group and the International Monetary Fund. These meetings have become an important opportunity for civil society, NGOs, journalists, and the private sector to engage with bank staff and country delegates on an array of issues in international economic development, from poverty reduction to clean energy.

The timing of these spring meetings is especially crucial now, as the World Bank conducts an ongoing review of its Energy Strategy. This strategy will guide all World Bank Group energy-related lending for the next decade.

WRI’s International Financial Flows and the Environment (IFFE) Program works to improve the environmental and social decision-making of these and other Multilateral Development Banks. These institutions are in a unique position; they can continue to drive investments in a conventional “business as usual” manner or they can raise environmental and social standards through their lending practices.

In preparation for the Spring Meetings, WRI has the following resources:

Analysis:

• Shattering Glass Walls at the Multilateral Development Banks: The development and environment communities must stop viewing their goals as separate or even at odds with each other. Investing in ecosystem services will help MDBs improve the livelihoods of the poor.

• The World Bank, MDBs, and Low Carbon Development: By 2030, approximately 90% of future growth in energy demand will come from developing countries. The Multilateral Development Banks have an important role to play in advancing more sustainable energy.

• Investing in Sustainable Energy Futures: Multilateral Development Banks’ Investments in Energy Policy: This report analyzes energy-related loan programs at the World Bank, ADB, the IDB in addition to the newly created Clean Technology Fund (CTF). Despite the increase in sustainable energy initiatives, a limited number of loans financed by the World Bank, Inter-American Development Bank and Asian Development Bank consistently support sustainable energy investments in developing countries.

• A Roadmap for Integrating Human Rights into the World Bank Group: This report argues that human rights are an integral part of effective and sustainable development, and should be explicitly considered in all World Bank Group (WBG) investment decisions. We examine the WBG’s integration of human rights standards into its operations — highlighting accomplishments, shortcomings, and barriers — and suggest ways forward.

• Summary of Climate Finance Pledges Put Forward By Developed Countries: WRI’s preliminary analysis on countries’ immediate and long term climate finance pledges announced thus far.

Events:

The World Bank’s Energy Strategy: Hosted by the World Resources Institute, Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) Center for American Progress (CAP), and International Rivers

Finance for Climate Change: 2010 Opportunities in Developing Countries: The World Resources Institute and McKenna, Long & Aldridge, LLP host a panel discussion on the role of private sector investment in addressing climate change mitigation in a time of economic and policy uncertainty.

WASHINGTON–Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) who has been quarterbacking the Illinois Senate bid of Democratic nominee Alexi Giannoulias, asked White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel for help and did not get any promise of assistance.

That’s according to a Politico story by Glenn Thrush and Manu Raju. Excerpt:

“At the moment, the White House seems open to the idea of losing Obama’s old seat rather than putting the president’s prestige on the line for Giannoulias, the brash and boyish Illinois state treasurer — and onetime Obama basketball buddy — whose campaign has been rocked by the financial meltdown of his family’s bank.”

Read the rest here.

I love Wordnik’s stylized description of themselves on their home page. Each reload changes the word sandwich. While we’re at it, I also find their Word of the Day selections to be the most interesting ones on the web.

Research In Motion Ltd.’s valuation reflects a “sentiment war” over its prospects, but its annual product showcase kicking off on Monday in Orlando should alleviate some concerns.

The BlackBerry maker has historically used its Wireless Enterprise Symposium (WES) to showcase its plans for growth, developments in carrier partnerships, and its latest products and solutions.

The event should draw plenty of attention as management its expected to address how it intends to regain top-line growth relative to Apple Inc. and other emerging handset and smartphone vendors. RIM is also expected to launch a new lower-priced BlackBerry aimed at consumers in emerging markets, a new faster browser that may include things like Flash support, and a new operating system (OS).

“As is clearly evident to BlackBerry users, the current web-browsing experience has significant shortcomings in terms of quality of experience, compared to the Apple iPhone or even new Smartphones introduced by HTC, Nokia, Motorola and Samsung,” Northern Securities said in a report. “This has been cited as one of the key reasons for limited penetration of the BlackBerry within the consumer segment, in addition to lack of a iTunes-type distribution platform.”

While some on the Street are concerned about competitive threats from Apple and Google Inc., momentum in North America and RIM’s enterprise business, RBC Capital Markets analyst Mike Abramsky thinks WES should produce improved sentiment.

He told clients that the event represents the “kick-off” to rising visibility for a number of new software, services, strategies and next-generation handsets RIM will launch in the second half of 2010. The analyst also thinks WES may help skeptical investors concede that RIM has a better chance than generally thought to narrow perceived competitive gaps and invigorate consumer uptake.

It may also further solidify RIM’s differentiated advantages versus Apple and Google. This, coupled with a “satisfying” browsing, user interface and application experience, may sustain market share, profitability and smartphone leadership.

Mr. Abramsky highlighted a variety of possible announcements RIM could make at WES. He assigned a 90% probability to a Webkit-based browser with iPhone-like speed, tabbed browsing and Flash support. A CDMA Bold 9650 handset announcement and launch timing was given a 75% chance, as was a 3G Pearl 9100, media/content partnership announcements and details on its China strategy.

Investors will be hungry for any commentary on the company’s success in China and other emerging markets as it may serve to offset the threat posed by a CDMA-based iPhone at Verizon Wireless. Northern Securities noted that Verizon Wireless and AT&T generate an estimated 40% of RIM’s total revenue and the launch of a CDMA-version of the iPhone is expected to erode RIM’s market share in the United States, which generated 58% of total revenue or US$8.6-billion in fiscal 2010.

The consumer market accounted for more than 50% of RIM’s current net subscriber additions each quarter during the past 12 months. Northern Securities believes this success is partly due to the company’s increased carrier partnerships in emerging markets and the European Union, as well as the introduction of lower-priced smartphones.

“With potential improvement in the web-browser to compete with consumer demand, we believe RIM can at least maintain its market share in the consumer market,” it said.

It also expects the enterprise refresh cycle during the second half of 2010 will bode well for RIM during 2010 and 2011 given its dominance in North America. “With Smartphone market share in key emerging markets like China and India up
for grabs, we believe it is too early to write off the potential success of the BlackBerry relative to the iPhone.”

Jonathan Ratner

Der Spiegel has an article on phosphorus, claiming “Essential Element Becoming Scarce” – Experts Warn of Impending Phosphorus Crisis (via Cryptogon).

The element phosphorus is essential to human life and the most important ingredient in fertilizer. But experts warn that the world’s reserves of phosphate rock are becoming depleted. Is recycling sewage the answer?

They sift the powder through their fingers, smell it and admire its soft, brownish shimmer. The members of the delegation from Japan, dressed in black suits and yellow helmets, stand attentively in a factory building in Leoben, Austria, marveling at a seemingly miraculous transformation, as stinking sewage sludge is turned into valuable ash.

Nothing suggests that the brown dust comes from a cesspool. It doesn’t smell, is hygienic and is as safe as sand in a children’s sandbox. It’s also valuable. The powder has a phosphate content of around 16 percent. Phosphate, the most important base material in mineral fertilizer, is currently trading at about €250 ($335) a ton.

Untreated sewage sludge was once dumped onto fields as liquid manure, until it became apparent how toxic it is. Human excretions are full of heavy metals, hormones, biphenyls — and drugs. New processing plants are designed to remove these toxins far more effectively than before, thereby paving the way for the use of sewage sludge in safe, human fertilizer. Ash Dec, the company that operates the pilot plant in Leoben, has dubbed the program “Ash to Cash.”

This unconventional approach could be important for all of mankind. While the term “peak oil” — the point at which production capacity will peak before oil wells gradually begin to run dry — is well known, fewer people know that phosphate reserves could also be running out. Experts refer to this scenario as “peak phosphorus.”

“While the exact timing may be disputed, it is clear that already the quality of remaining phosphate rock reserves is decreasing and cheap fertilizers will be a thing of the past,” warns Dana Cordell of the Institute for Sustainable Futures in Sydney. A phosphate crisis would be at least as serious as an oil crisis. While oil can be replaced as a source of energy — by nuclear, wind or solar energy –, there is no alternative to phosphorus. It is a basic element of all life, and without it human beings, animals and plants could not survive.

Technology Review has a look at the use of nanoparticles to improve solar power performance – TR10: Light-Trapping Photovoltaics.

In 1995, finishing her undergraduate degree in physics, Kylie Catchpole decided to take a risk on a field that was nearly moribund: photovoltaics. “There was a sense that I might have difficulty ever being employed,” she recalls. But her gamble paid off. In 2006 Catchpole, then a postdoc, discovered something that opened the door to making thin-film solar cells significantly more efficient at converting light into electricity. It’s an advance that could help make solar power more competitive with fossil fuels.

Thin-film solar cells, which are made from semiconductor materials like amorphous silicon or cadmium telluride, are cheaper to produce than conventional solar cells, which are made from relatively thick and expensive crystalline wafers of silicon. But they are also less efficient, because if a cell is thinner than the wavelength of incoming light is long, that light is less likely to be absorbed and converted. At just a few micro­meters thick, thin-film cells only weakly absorb wavelengths in the near-infrared part of the spectrum; that energy is lost. The result is that thin-film photovoltaics convert 8 to 12 percent of incoming light to electricity, versus 14 to 19 percent for crystalline silicon. Thus, larger installations are required in order to produce the same amount of electricity, limiting the number of places the technology can be used.

Catchpole, who is now a research fellow at the Australian National University in Canberra, began work on this problem in 2002 at the University of New South Wales in Sydney. “It was a case of ‘start at the beginning: can you think of a completely different way to make a solar cell?’ ” she says. “One of the things I came across was plasmonics–looking at the strange optical properties of metals.”

Plasmons are a type of wave that moves through the electrons at the surface of a metal when they are excited by incident light. Others had tried harnessing plasmonic effects to make conventional silicon photovoltaics more efficient, but no one had tried it with thin-film solar cells. Catchpole found that nanoparticles of silver she deposited on the surface of a thin-film silicon solar cell did not reflect back light that fell directly onto them, as would happen with a mirror. Instead, plasmons that formed at the particles’ surface deflected the photons so that they bounced back and forth within the cell, allowing longer wavelengths to be absorbed.

Catchpole’s experimental devices produce 30 percent more electrical current than conventional thin-film silicon cells. If Catchpole can integrate her nanoparticle technology with the processes used to mass-produce thin films commercially, it could shift the balance of technology used in solar cells. Thin-film photovoltaics could not only gain market share (they currently have just 30 percent of the market in the United States) but sustain growth in the solar industry overall.

Thus far, silicon has been losing out to cadmium telluride as the material of choice for thin-film solar cells. (First Solar, the market leader, is planning gigawatt-scale solar farms that will use cadmium telluride thin-film technology to deliver as much electricity as conventional power stations.) But tellurium is a rare material, and experts question whether the supply will support such grand ambitions. “There just isn’t enough tellurium to make a substantial difference to the way the world’s energy is produced,” says Catchpole. “Silicon is the way to go.”

With demand for copper rising around the world and many of the major miners producing short of guidance, it looks like there will be a shortage of the metal in 2010, a note from Octagon Capital said Friday.

Hendrik Visagie, analyst with Octagon, said China will continue to import copper from North America despite reports to the contrary.

"In the West, copper demand has been improving as countries begin to recover from the 2008 liquidity crisis. In China, despite forecasts that it will import less copper this year due to a perceived over-stocking of copper last year, high imports of copper from the West persist," he said in a note.

To wit, while China imported 747,000 tonnes of copper in the first quarter of 2010, down 12,000 tonnes from 2009, that was offset by a 329,000-tonne increase in imports of copper concentrate, to 1,741,000 tonnes. Assuming that the average grade is 30%, that works out to a net increase of 86,700 tonnes of copper, he said.

"With lower mine production, there will be lower copper smelter production," Mr. Visagie said. "As a result, we believe copper will slide into deficit this year, not surplus."

Mr. Visagie forecasts copper to average $3.40 a pound in 2010. In the first quarter, the average price was $3.30 a pound, and so far this quarter the price has been $3.48 a pound. "We expect there is still upside potential," he said.

Eric Lam

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David Hanson’s robots are by now somewhat familiar faces, including his Einstein robot currently being used as a research tool at Javier Movellan’s Machine Perception Lab at UCSD, and the punk rock conversationalist Joey Chaos. A less familiar face is that of Bina Rothblatt, the blonde at the end of the table in the above photograph. Bina is a robot commissioned by Sirius Satellite Radio inventor Martine Rothblatt to look like her beloved wife. Take that, uncanny valley!

Photographer Timothy Archibald and I worked closely on this project with the idea of creating portraits, and maybe a kind of family portrait, of the Hanson robots. After flying to Texas to shoot Hanson and robots at his home and workshop in Dallas, Texas, Archibald wrote to me.

“Here is a big house in a Texas suburb that looks normal on the outside. On the inside it is robot making company made up of a floating array of 9-12 employees sculpting things, working on the electrical stuff and writing code for software…taking over the living room, den, kitchen, etc. On the upstairs level is where Hanson, his wife and 3 year old live. They they are in month three of this arrangement. There is no down time. People trickle in at 11:00 AM and stay until 1-3 AM everyday including weekends. They are cranking right now, trying to hit deadlines with The Android Portrait of Bina Rothblatt as well as a potential consumer robot called ZENO. Curiously, Hanson’s son is also named Zeno. There is a story on how that came to be, of course…”

To see more photography from this story, check out DISCOVER magazine’s May 2010 issue on newsstands now.

Katherine Batiste of Hanson Robotics working on a computer with “An Android Portrait Of Bina Rothblatt” sits on the table.

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Starcraft 2 Patch 9 change logs and undocumented changes

Battle.net 2.0 has been reset and finally, the profile reset bug has (supposedly) been fixed. Immortal has been nerfed, Infestor skills has been tweaked. A beta version of […]

No related posts.

Many luxury automakers are catering to the Chinese market at this year’s 2010 Beijing Motor Show with special-edition models made just for China. Following Bentley’s move yesterday, Lamborghini announced today that it will show the Murcielago LP 670-4 SuperVeloce China Limited Edition.

“Automobili Lamborghini’s strong performance at the 2010 Beijing Auto Show and its launch of a special edition of the flagship Murcielago LP 670-4 SuperVeloce exclusively for the Chinese market underscore our unwavering commitment to China and the development of a super sports car culture here,” said Stephan Winkelmann, President and CEO of Automobili Lamborghini S.p.A. “Last year, Automobili Lamborghini achieved 11 percent growth in China. At the beginning of this week on 20th of April, we have launched our seventh Automobili Lamborghini China dealership in Shenzhen. The inauguration of our eighth showroom in Xiamen will come soon.”

The Lamborghini Murcielago LP 670-4 SuperVeloce China Limited Edition will be limited to just 10 units and will feature an orange stripe, “symbolizing the strength of an erupting volcano.” on the flat gray painted carbon shell. Each of the 10 model holds a numeration badge with the name of its owner.

Power for the Lamborghini Murcielago LP 670-4 SuperVeloce comes from a 6.5L V12 producing 670-hp and a peak torque of 487 lb-ft. 0 to 62 mph comes in 3.2 seconds with a top speed of 212 mph.

Make the jump for the press release for more details.

Lamborghini Murcielago LP 670-4 SuperVeloce China Limited Edition:

Press Release:

Lamborghini presents Murciélago LP 670-4 SuperVeloce China Limited Edition in Beijing

Italian super sports carmaker Lamborghini surprised audiences at the 2010 Beijing Auto Show with a highly exclusive edition of the Murciélago LP 670-4 SuperVeloce. The Chinese Edition is limited to not more than ten numbered cars and will be offered to the growing group of sports cars collectors in China only. Furthermore the Gallardo LP 570-4 Superleggera celebrated its Asian premiere on the Beijing auto show.

Murciélago LP 670-4 SuperVeloce China Limited Edition

Limited to only ten cars worldwide, the special edition Murciélago LP 670-4 SuperVeloce is designed and manufactured exclusively for China’s most discriminating super sports car enthusiasts. An orange stripe, symbolising the strength of an erupting volcano, decorates the flat grey painted carbon shell of the Murciélago. Every model holds a numeration badge with the name of its owner.

The Lamborghini Murciélago LP 670-4 SuperVeloce is one of the most fascinating super sports cars of all times. The exceptionally purist and even more extreme top model – the Murciélago LP 670-4 SuperVeloce – is even more powerful, lighter and faster than the Murciélago LP 640. With the output of the 6.5 liter V12 increased to 670 hp and a weight reduction of 100 kg (220 lbs), the Murciélago LP 670-4 SuperVeloce boasts a power-to-weight ratio of 2.3 kg (5.1 lbs) per hp. It vaults itself from zero to 100 km/h in just 3,2 seconds and hits top speed at 342 km/h.

With its outstanding performance, razor-sharp precision and exceptional high-speed stability, the Lamborghini Murciélago LP 670-4 SuperVeloce is the ultimate performance car for advanced sports car drivers. In order to achieve the substantial weight reduction of 100 kilograms (220 lbs), the Murciélago LP 670-4 SuperVeloce was extensively reworked and redeveloped in virtually every aspect – from chassis to engine and transmission, right through to the interior. The increase in engine output from 640 to 670 hp is the result of optimized valve timing and a reworked intake system. The significantly modified aerodynamics with substantially increased downforce brings considerable improvement to vehicle stability at very high speeds. The large “Aeropack Wing” and its added downforce give a top speed of 337 km/h (209 mph).

Gallardo LP 570-4 Superleggera

The Lamborghini Gallardo LP 570-4 Superleggera is the new top model of the Gallardo line. Its “superlight” name describes a high-performance driving machine with a true sporting character and an automotive high-performance athlete. In comparison to the already slimmed-down Gallardo LP 560-4 the weight of the Gallardo LP 570-4 Superleggera could be reduced 70 Kilograms. So the dry weight of the new Sant’Agata Superleggera is just 1,340 kilogram – a new benchmark in the very exclusive market of extreme super sports cars.

The use of carbon fibre for external and internal components is heavily contributing to the weight reduction of the Superleggera. This carbon-composite material is ideal for super sports cars, combining weight reduction with improved technical characteristics. Reduced weight optimises the driving performance and correspondingly reduces CO2 emissions. For many years Lamborghini has lead the way in the use of carbon fibre and is now increasing its advantage even further.

The 5,2 litre V10 engine output of the new Superleggera is 419kW (570 hp). The power-to-weight ratio of this new top model amounts to only 2,35 Kilogram per hp and guarantees a breathtaking driving performance. The Superleggera accelerates from 0 to 100 km/h in just 3.4 seconds sprints to 200 km/h only 10.2 seconds later, ultimately reaching 325 km/h. The gasoline direct injection engine “Inezione Diretta Stratifica” achieves an impressive efficiency: fuel consumption and CO2 emissions dropped 20.5 percent in comparison to the previous model.

Lamborghini shows strong performance in China Market

The booming Chinese automobile market has matured and created a culture in which the brand of the raging bulls has taken root. In 2009, Automobili Lamborghini delivered 80 new cars to People’s Republic, achieving 11 percent year-on-year growth. With six dealerships in Guangzhou, Shanghai, Beijing, Chengdu, Hangzhou and Hong Kong, Lamborghini unveiled a new dealership in Shenzhen this week. Another Showroom in Xiamen will soon follow.

– By: Omar Rana

Two years ago we launched our first 25 Who Ditched Infotech for Cleantech list, where we profiled 25 entrepreneurs and investors who had taken their dotcom and broadband-based winnings in tow, and plunged into the energy and cleantech markets. Now in light of our upcoming Green:Net conference — which looks at the intersection of IT and green — we’ve decided to revive the list for its second edition.

Some of those original innovators are still the best candidates, so we brought them back for the second time around. But there’s also quite a few new comers we’ve added on. And, like in the inaugural year, some of the execs are finding more success than others. Also several of these innovators will be speaking at Green:Net on April 29 in San Francisco. Here’s our second edition of the 25 Who Ditched Infotech for Greentech:

1. Bill Gates, Philanthropist, Investor, Chairman Microsoft
2. William D. Watkins, CEO, Bridgelux
3. Vinod Khosla, Founder Khosla Ventures.
4. Lee Burrows, Partner, VantagePoint Venture Partners
5. John Doerr, Partner, Kleiner Perkins
6. Thom Siebel, Founder, Chairman of C3
7. Elon Musk, Chairman, Tesla, Chairman, CEO SolarCity
8. John Steinberg, Founder, CEO, Ecofactor
9. Steve Jurvetson, Partner Draper Fisher Jurvetson.
10. Bill Gross, Founder Idealab.
11. Ray Lane, Partner Kleiner Perkins.
12. Steve Westly, Founder The Westly Group.
13. Ric Fulop, Founder, A123Systems
14. Bob Metcalfe, Partner, Polaris Venture Partners
15. Scott Lang, CEO, Silver Spring Networks
16. Shai Agassi, Founder, CEO Project Better Place
17. Richard Lowenthal, Founder, CEO, of Coulomb Technologies
18. Frank Varasano, Founder, Former CEO V-Vehicle
19. Al Gore, Chairman Generation Investment Managment, Partner Kleiner Perkins
20. Bernard Tse, Founder, CEO, of Atieva
21. Bill Joy, Partner Kleiner Perkins
22. Scott Faris, CEO Planar Energy Devices
23. Trae Vassallo, Partner, Kleiner Perkins
24. Rob Ferber, CTO of KLD Energy Technologies
25. Warren Weiss, Partner Foundation Capital

When we think about science, most of us think of dramatic breakthroughs. We think Darwin and Wallace, Einstein and Bohr, Copernicus and Curie and we imagine everything changed overnight.

Most science, however, develops in bits and pieces, twisting and turning, waxing and waning, until, after thirty years, things are new. Even the dramatic shifts, like natural selection, took decades to get from radical to mainstream.

If you’re at all curious about things, you notice this in a single lifespan. Consider deep history; the story of humans from 150K to 3K years ago. In the past 30 years discoveries from genomics, climate research, linguistics, plant research, translation, anthropology and archaeology, combined with the revision of old biases, have dramatically changed our understanding of deep history. In each case, of course, computation has been a fundamental driver. That’s how it works – new instruments make new science.

It’s been growing slowly from all directions, but the sum is a very different world from what some of us learned in the 1970s. The human brain is evolving and changing far more dramatically than we imagined, and that evolution has not slowed with modernity. Our concepts of human speciation are being transformed; there were many “species” of human coexisting into deep history – and, like dogs and wolves, they probably crossed often.

Pre-agricultural humans were far more populous and widespread than we once imagined; the large populations of pre-invasion (early agricultural and hunter-gatherer) North America probably reflect worldwide pre-agricultural patterns.

Even after the development of agriculture and writing we see thousand year intervals of relative stasis in China, Egypt and Mesopotamia. How could this be when our fundamental technologies change in decades. Are the minds of modern Egyptians radically different from the minds of only 6,000 years ago? Why? Why do we see this graph at this time in human history?

What did humans do in Georgian caves for 30,000 years? Thirty thousand years of waving and sewing and nothing changes?! They could not have had the same brains we have. They seem more … Neandertal.

Fascinating times, and there’s much more here than I can address in one post. That’s why I’m adding a new tag (label) for this blog — “deep history” in anticipation of much more to come.

For now see also:

• Dienekes’ Anthropology Blog- Paleolithic flax fibres from Georgia (Kvavadze et al. 2009)
• Multiregional evolution lives! – john hawks weblog
• Why Humanity Loves, and Needs, Cities – Economix Blog – NYTimes.
• In Our Time, Babylon
• In Our Time, Akhenaten (He reminds me of Kim Jong-il)
• In Our Time, The Library at Nineveh