A visiting senior military official of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) hailed here on Friday the brotherhood ties between his country and Cuba.The two countries "share the same trench," DPRK Chief of the General Staff Kim Kyok Sik told the press after he paid tribute to Cuba's pro-independence hero Antonio Maceo."I have seen how the Cuban people fights for socialism and I am convinced that our friendship relations will continue," Kim said.Heading a DPRK military delegation to Cuba, Kim also visited a unit of war tanks and was briefed of the Caribbean island country's fight pre...
In the aftermath of the dot-com crash, a new era for the web began to take hold - a turning point whose seismic shift was hyped under the moniker "Web 2.0." The concept referred to the web becoming a platform, a home for services whose popularity grew through network effects, user-generated content and collaboration. Blogging, social media sites, wikis, mashups, and more reflected a changing consciousness among the Internet's denizens - one which Tim O'Reilly, whose Web 2.0 conferences helped solidify the term as a part of our everyday lexicon, once described as a "collective intelligence, turning the web into a kind of global brain."
Four-year-old Hayden Slykhuis cools off in the flow of a fountain at the Red Ridge Park kids water park in Las Vegas on Saturday.
By Tracy Jarrett and Alastair Jamieson, NBC News
More record-breaking temperatures were forecast for western parts of the United States Sunday, part of extreme weather that has already caused at least one suspected heat-related death.
Temperatures will continue to soar well into the 110s and even 120s into the new week ahead across the Southwest, Weather.com forecasters warned Sunday, raising fears that more people could fall victim to the excessive heat.
Hot temperatures will also spread throughout the valleys of the Great Basin and Northwest, but not to the levels witnesses in the Desert Southwest, it said.
Saturday saw a slew of weather records broken, Weather.com reported, including in Phoenix, Ariz. which saw its fourth-hottest day in history with a temperature of 119 degrees.
Salt Lake City, Utah, had its hottest ever day on record ? 112 degrees for the second day in a row, while San Antonio, Texas set a new June record (108 degrees), as did Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, Texas (107 degrees).
Las Vegas' McCarran airport tied a record for the day at 115 degrees, and at a National Weather Service office in the southwest section of the city the thermometer spiked up to 118 degrees. In Death Valley, Calif., it was 124 degrees.?
A Las Vegas Fire & Rescue crew responded to a report of an elderly man in cardiac arrest at residence without air conditioning on Saturday. When paramedics arrived, they found the man was dead,?NBC station KSNV reported. The man, who was not identified, did have medical issues but paramedics characterized his death as heat-related.
Another elderly man whose car air conditioner went out while on a road trip fell sick, stopped and called 911. He was admitted to the hospital and reported in serious condition.?
It was so hot in Nevada that rangers at Lake Mead persuaded tourists not to hike, according to the National Park Service, which posted the warning on its Facebook page.
Some cities have seen temperatures soar far past the hundred degree mark, while the heat continues. TODAY's Dylan Dreyer reports.
Dr. Kein Reilly with University of Arizona Department of Emergency Medicine told NBC News Tucson affiliate KVOA that Arizona residents should stay inside and drink plenty of water.
"If you get dizzy or light headed those are some signs of dehydration. If you become confused that's a real warning sign. That's someone who needs to come into the emergency department," Reilly said.
Cooling stations were set up to shelter the homeless as well as elderly people who can't afford to run their air conditioners,? Phoenix, Ariz, Sheriff Joe Arpaio told NBC News affiliate KSNV.
NBC News? Jeff Black contributed to this report.
Related:
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This story was originally published on Sun Jun 30, 2013 7:48 AM EDT
When we asked our friends at PeekAnalytics to tell us who the most influential ad execs on Twitter are, we expected to get back a list of the usual suspects. You know, the most famous CEOs at the biggest agencies, plus Seth Godin, Lee Clow's Beard, and perhaps KBS+'s Lori Senecal, who once bought promoted tweets for herself.
In fact, none of the huge names of advertising are influential on Twitter, according to PeekAnalytics. The company ranked our Twitterers by "social pull" as opposed to mere total followers. Social pull is a "metric which takes into account not only the quantity of each audience's connections across 60 social networking sites, but also how active and connected, and therefore influential, those connections are."
One of the names on our list has an amazing 313,000 followers. Most have more than 10,000, with many in the mid five figures.
We learned that to be successful on Twitter as an ad exec, you have to be positive and upbeat. No Debbie Downers here.
The way to get retweeted is to give advice, and offer a lot of aphorisms about success in business.
The medium also lends itself to specialists like John Sonnhalter. He has nearly 14,000 followers on Twitter but few on Madison Avenue will recognize his name ? he specializes in ads and sales for the construction business.
PayPal is used by almost 130 million people, generates a lot of revenue, and made its backers very, very wealthy. It's a model company. But, that's apparently not enough, and PayPal just announced it will create a way for astronauts to buy things, in space. OK.
Rapper Eminem admits in a new documentary that his abuse of prescription drugs almost killed him. "My bottom was going to be death," the rapper said in an interview in "How to Make Money Selling Drugs," a 2013 documentary.
(Warning: The film excerpt is expletive-filled.)
The musician talks about how his first Vicodin was a revelation for him since it made him feel "mellow" and also took away his pain.
Friends tried to warn him that he was in trouble, Eminem said, but he pushed them away since he didn't view prescription drug abuse as the same as using crack or heroin.
?I would say, ?Get that (expletive) person outta here,? ? he said in the film. ?I can?t believe they said that (expletive) to me. ... I literally thought I could control (my drug problem)."
Soon the specific drugs didn't matter. "You're taking things that people are giving you that you don't even know what the (expletive) they are," Eminem said. "Xanax, Valium, tomato, to-mah-to."
The drugs caught up to the rapper and he had to be hospitalized. "Had I got to the hospital about two hours later, I would have died," he recalls in the film. "My organs were shutting down. My liver, kidneys, everything. They were gonna have to put me on dialysis, they didn?t think I was gonna make it. My bottom was gonna be death."
After leaving the hospital, Eminem relapsed within a month. "I remember just walking around my house and thinking every single day, like, I'm gonna (expletive) die." The rapper said he didn't sleep for three weeks, "not even for an (expletive) minute," and had to regain the ability to walk and speak.
"I just couldn?t believe that anybody could be naturally happy or naturally function or be just enjoying life in general without being on something," he said. "So I would say to anybody, ?It does get better.'"
"Entourage" star Adrian Grenier is one of the producers of the film, which includes interviews with Susan Sarandon and Woody Harrelson.
HARRISBURG ? The?Pennsylvania?State Police is looking for a few good horses.
The force?s 25-horse mounted patrol unit is seeking donations of horses to be used statewide for searches, crowd control, security, and patrol operations of remote areas.
?Pennsylvania?troopers have a long history of patrolling from horseback,??Pennsylvania?State Police Commissioner?Frank Noonan said. ?Since 1905, state police ranks have included horses ? and since then, with all the advanced technology, the horse is still a reliable tool in police work.?
Horses must be geldings between the ages of 5 and 15 years old. The horse has to stand at least 16 hands tall ? 5 foot 4 inches? at the shoulder, but less than 18 hands tall. Drafts and draft-crosses are preferred. Thoroughbreds and other ?hot bloods? are less desirable.
?The horses are effective in crowds because they elevate troopers, enabling them to see over people?s heads,? Noonan said. ?Mounted troopers also participate in parades, demonstrations and other public relations activities based on availability.?
The animals must have quiet, sound dispositions and be free of serious stable vices.? Horses will be accepted on a 90-day trial basis to determine their suitability. A veterinary examination will also be performed.
The?Pennsylvania?State Police maintains a stable at the Academy in?Hershey?and rely solely on donations for animals.
?Horses have been donated over the years from diverse backgrounds ? some were racehorses, others were family pets,? Noonan said.
To make a donation or get more information, please contact Corporal?Michael Funk, at 717-533-9111, ext. 321 or atmifunk@pa.gov.
All Critics (70) | Top Critics (24) | Fresh (62) | Rotten (8)
The film treats imagination-and talent-in certain hands as an almost mystical force.
Ozon and the script move a little too far afield and hold on a bit too long as the film approaches its end. Still, "In the House" has enough trippy truth to it to grab your interest and shake your mind.
It's fiction about life that becomes fiction that might be life - and the viewer happily dives in.
The expected punch line... never materializes, so I guess this must be a drama after all.
Savor In the House for its meta-exploration of adolescence, class resentment and suppressed desire, but don't expect much more.
The seductions of storytelling drive "In the House," a cleverly structured comic thriller rich with narrative trickery and macabre humor.
Provocative, playful, entertaining and audacious, In the House is a writer showing us the inner workings of writing, complete with its power to subvert, to imagine and to deceive
Occasionally too clever for its own good, the film may go one step too far, but Ozon manages the hybrid of genres beautifully and ultimately it is his superb cast that sells the nuances and the concept
A sly, stylish blend of melodrama and suspense that's also a cunning commentary on the seductiveness and danger inherent in storytelling itself.
Director/scriptwriter Francois Ozon knows his Hitchcock well. He employs him effectively, but the clutter is his own.
An almost perverse delight, an egghead thriller that slyly shell-games its truer purpose as an inquiry into the construction -- and deconstruction -- of fiction. Scratch deconstruction: Make that tear-the-house-down demolition.
It's partly real and partly a fable, full of events that might have happened or could never have happened, with intrigues that defy us to take them seriously.
In the House is a structurally solid thriller that is both inventive and absolutely seductive in nature.
Inviting photography and a relentless pace complement Claude's unfolding narrative, but the big thrills are in the deftly drawn characters...and the incisive satire...
A slick psychological thriller that veers into dark comedy the more absurd it gets, "In the House" demonstrates the dangers of addiction -- not to sex or drugs, but to story.
Captures why we do what we do, and the extent to which stories reflect both the writer and the reader.
It's amusing and unexpected, capturing the compulsive spirit of writing with wit and attention to mischief that keeps it unpredictable to the very end.
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BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union agreed on Thursday to force investors and wealthy savers to share the costs of future bank failures, moving closer to drawing a line under years of taxpayer-funded bailouts that have prompted public outrage.
After seven hours of late-night talks, finance ministers from the bloc's 27 countries emerged with a blueprint to close or salvage banks in trouble. The plan stipulates that shareholders, bondholders and depositors with more than 100,000 euros ($132,000) should share the burden of saving a bank.
The deal is a boost for EU leaders, who meet later on Thursday in Brussels, and can show that they are finally getting to grips with the financial crisis that began in mid-2007 with the near collapse of Germany's IKB.
"For the first time, we agreed on a significant bail-in to shield taxpayers," said Dutch Finance Minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem, referring to the process in which shareholders and bondholders must bear the costs of restructuring first.
The rules break a taboo in Europe that savers should never lose their deposits, although countries will have some flexibility to decide when and how to impose losses on a failing bank's creditors.
"They can affect German savers just as well as they can affect any other investor in the world," German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said after the meeting.
Taxpayers across much of Europe have had to pay for a series of deeply unpopular bank rescues since the financial crisis that spread across the bloc to threaten the future of the euro.
The European Union spent the equivalent of a third of its economic output on saving its banks between 2008 and 2011, using taxpayer cash but struggling to contain the crisis and - in the case of Ireland - almost bankrupting the country.
But a bailout of Cyprus in March that forced losses on depositors marked a harsher approach that can now, following Thursday's agreement, be replicated elsewhere.
French Finance Minister Pierre Moscovici signaled that ministers also agreed to French demands that the euro zone's rescue fund, the European Stability Mechanism, can be used to help banks in the 17-nation currency area that run into trouble.
"It makes the whole thing coherent," said Moscovici. "It creates a solidity for the system and a system of solidarity," he told reporters.
Under the rules, which would come into effect by 2018, countries would be obliged to distribute losses up to the equivalent of 8 percent of a bank's liabilities, with some leeway thereafter.
Europe can now focus on building the next pillar of a project to unify the supervision and support of banks in the euro zone, known as "banking union."
"EXECUTIONER"
But thorny issues lie ahead, not least whether countries or a central European authority should have the final say in shutting or restructuring a bad bank.
The European Commission, the EU executive, is expected to unveil its proposal for a new agency to carry out this task of "executioner" as early as next week, officials said.
"The most important discussion has yet to start and that is how decisions on restructuring will be made," said Nicolas Veron, a financial expert at Brussels-based think tank Bruegel. "It's premature to say that Europe is getting its act together."
Many Europeans remain angry with bankers and the easy credit that helped create property bubbles in countries including Ireland and Spain, which then burst and plunged Europe into a recession from which it has yet to recover.
Earlier this week, Ireland's deputy prime minister attacked "arrogant" executives at a failed bank who had mocked government efforts to tackle the country's banking crisis.
In the tapes published by an Irish newspaper, the collapsed Anglo Irish Bank's then-head of capital markets was asked how he had come up with a figure of 7 billion euros for a bank rescue, responding that he had "picked it out of my arse.
Unlike the United States, which moved swiftly to deal with its problem banks, Europe has been reluctant to close those whose credit is crucial to the economy and with which governments have close political ties.
This should change as soon as the European Central Bank takes over the supervision of euro zone banks from late next year, completing one pillar of banking union.
The ECB will run checks on banks under its watch. This new EU law on sharing losses could be used as the blueprint for closing or salvaging those banks it finds to be weak.
The second leg of banking union would be the resolution authority to shutter banks or restructure them. But the pace of progress depends in large part on Germany, which is reluctant to agree to such a move ahead of elections in September.
"Before the German Bundestag elections, Chancellor Angela Merkel will not agree to a far-reaching banking union," Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann said in an interview.
(Additional reporting by Ilona Wissenbach; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)
A 700,000 year old horse gets its genome sequencedPublic release date: 26-Jun-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Eske Willerslev ewillerslev@snm.ku.dk 45-28-75-13-09 University of Copenhagen
A genome world record
It is nothing short of a world record in DNA research that scientists at the Centre for GeoGenetics at the Natural History Museum of Denmark (University of Copenhagen) have hit. They have sequenced the so far oldest genome from a prehistoric creature. They have done so by sequencing and analyzing short pieces of DNA molecules preserved in bone-remnants from a horse that had been kept frozen for the last 700.000 years in the permafrost of Yukon, Canada. By tracking the genomic changes that transformed prehistoric wild horses into domestic breeds, the researchers have revealed the genetic make-up of modern horses with unprecedented details. The spectacular results are now published in the international scientific journal Nature.
DNA molecules can survive in fossils well after an organism dies. Not as whole chromosomes, but as short pieces that could be assembled back together, like a puzzle. Sometimes enough molecules survive so that the full genome sequence of extinct species could be resurrected and over the last years, the full genome sequence of a few ancient humans and archaic hominins has been characterized. But so far, none dated back to before 70,000 years.
Now Dr. Ludovic Orlando and Professor Eske Willerslev from the Centre for GeoGenetics have beaten this DNA-record by about 10 times. Thereby the two researchers in collaboration with Danish and international colleagues have been able to track major genomic changes over the last 700.000 years of evolution of the horse lineage.
First, by comparing the genome in the 700,000 year old horse with the genome of a 43,000 year old horse, six present day horses and the donkey the researchers could estimate how fast mutations accumulate through time and calibrate a genome-wide mutation rate. This revealed that the last common ancestor of all modern equids was living about 4.0-4.5 million years ago. Therefore, the evolutionary radiation underlying the origin of horses, donkeys and zebras reaches back in time twice as long as previously thought. Additionally, this new clock revealed multiple episodes of severe demographic fluctuation in horse history, in phase with major climatic changes such as the Last Glacial Maximum, some 20,000 years ago.
The world's only wild horse
The results also put an happy end to a long discussion about the so-called Przewalski's Horse from the Mongolian steppes. This horse population was discovered by the Western world in the second half of the nineteenth century and rapidly became threatened. It almost became extinct in the wild by the 1970s but has survived until now following massive conservation efforts. The evolutionary origin of this horse, that shows striking physical differences compared to domesticated horses, as well as an extra-pair of chromosomes, remained a mystery.
The researchers reveal now that the Przewalski's horse population became isolated from the lineage leading to the present day domesticated horses about 50.000 years ago. As the scientists could detect similar levels of genetic diversity within the Przewalski's Horse genome than in the genomes of several domestic breeds, this suggests that the Przewalski's Horses are likely genetically viable and therefore worthy of conservation efforts.
True Single DNA Molecule Sequencing
The geological context and dating information available was very strong and was built on about ten years of field work. Additionally, cold conditions, such as those from the Arctic permafrost, are known to be favourable for DNA preservation. But even so:
- Sequencing the first genome from the Middle Pleistocene was by no means straightforward, says Dr Ludovic Orlando who, together with his team, spent the most of the last three years on this project.
The researchers first got excited when they detected the signature of those amino-acids that are most abundant in the collagen as this could indicate that proteins had survived in situ. They even got more excited when they succeeding in directly sequencing collagen peptides. When they detected blood proteins, it really started looking promising because those are barely preserved. At that stage, it could well be that ancient DNA could also be preserved.
And indeed DNA was present. In tiny amount as the vast majority of sequences generated actually originated from environmental micro-organisms living in the bone. But with Helicos true Single DNA Molecule Sequencing, the researchers managed to identify molecular preservation niches in the bone and experimental conditions that enabled finishing the full genome sequence.
- This was methodologically challenging but clearly some parameters worked better than others, says Professor Eske Willerslev. But sequencing was just half the way really. Professor Willerslev continues:
- Because 700,000 years of evolution and damage, it is not something that does come without any modification to the DNA sequence itself. We had to improve our ability to identify modified and divergent ancient horse sequences by aligning them to the genome of present day horses.
Quite a computational challenge, especially when the level of DNA modification outcompasses that seen in any other Arctic horses from the Late Pleistocene. Dr. Orlando explains:
- Levels of base modifications were extremely high, for some regions even so high that every single cytosine was actually damaged. This, and the phylogenetic position of the ancient horse outside the diversity of any horse ever sequenced, provided clear evidence that the data was real.
Professor Willerslev adds:
- The results of the studies and the applied techniques open up new doors for the exploration of prehistoric living creatures. Now with genomics and proteomics, we can reach ten times further back in time compared to before. And new knowledge about the horse's evolutionary history has been added a history which is considered as a classical example in evolutionary biology and a topic which is taught in high schools and universities.
###
The new results are published in the scientific journal Nature. This major scientific advance has been made possible through the collaboration with researchers from Denmark, China, Canada, USA, Switzerland, UK, Norway, France, Sweden and Saudi Arabia and with financial support from the Danish National Research Foundation.
Contact:
Eske Willerslev
Professor
Natural History Museum
ster Voldgade 5-7
1350 Kbenhavn K
Mobil +45 28751309
Phone: +45 353-21309
Phone (Secretariat): +45 353-21213
Ludovic Antoine Alexandre Orlando
External researcher
Natural History Museum
ster Voldgade 5-7
1350 Kbenhavn K
Mobil: +45 21 84 96 46
Phone: +45 353-21231
Telefon (Sekretariat): +45 353-22222
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
A 700,000 year old horse gets its genome sequencedPublic release date: 26-Jun-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Eske Willerslev ewillerslev@snm.ku.dk 45-28-75-13-09 University of Copenhagen
A genome world record
It is nothing short of a world record in DNA research that scientists at the Centre for GeoGenetics at the Natural History Museum of Denmark (University of Copenhagen) have hit. They have sequenced the so far oldest genome from a prehistoric creature. They have done so by sequencing and analyzing short pieces of DNA molecules preserved in bone-remnants from a horse that had been kept frozen for the last 700.000 years in the permafrost of Yukon, Canada. By tracking the genomic changes that transformed prehistoric wild horses into domestic breeds, the researchers have revealed the genetic make-up of modern horses with unprecedented details. The spectacular results are now published in the international scientific journal Nature.
DNA molecules can survive in fossils well after an organism dies. Not as whole chromosomes, but as short pieces that could be assembled back together, like a puzzle. Sometimes enough molecules survive so that the full genome sequence of extinct species could be resurrected and over the last years, the full genome sequence of a few ancient humans and archaic hominins has been characterized. But so far, none dated back to before 70,000 years.
Now Dr. Ludovic Orlando and Professor Eske Willerslev from the Centre for GeoGenetics have beaten this DNA-record by about 10 times. Thereby the two researchers in collaboration with Danish and international colleagues have been able to track major genomic changes over the last 700.000 years of evolution of the horse lineage.
First, by comparing the genome in the 700,000 year old horse with the genome of a 43,000 year old horse, six present day horses and the donkey the researchers could estimate how fast mutations accumulate through time and calibrate a genome-wide mutation rate. This revealed that the last common ancestor of all modern equids was living about 4.0-4.5 million years ago. Therefore, the evolutionary radiation underlying the origin of horses, donkeys and zebras reaches back in time twice as long as previously thought. Additionally, this new clock revealed multiple episodes of severe demographic fluctuation in horse history, in phase with major climatic changes such as the Last Glacial Maximum, some 20,000 years ago.
The world's only wild horse
The results also put an happy end to a long discussion about the so-called Przewalski's Horse from the Mongolian steppes. This horse population was discovered by the Western world in the second half of the nineteenth century and rapidly became threatened. It almost became extinct in the wild by the 1970s but has survived until now following massive conservation efforts. The evolutionary origin of this horse, that shows striking physical differences compared to domesticated horses, as well as an extra-pair of chromosomes, remained a mystery.
The researchers reveal now that the Przewalski's horse population became isolated from the lineage leading to the present day domesticated horses about 50.000 years ago. As the scientists could detect similar levels of genetic diversity within the Przewalski's Horse genome than in the genomes of several domestic breeds, this suggests that the Przewalski's Horses are likely genetically viable and therefore worthy of conservation efforts.
True Single DNA Molecule Sequencing
The geological context and dating information available was very strong and was built on about ten years of field work. Additionally, cold conditions, such as those from the Arctic permafrost, are known to be favourable for DNA preservation. But even so:
- Sequencing the first genome from the Middle Pleistocene was by no means straightforward, says Dr Ludovic Orlando who, together with his team, spent the most of the last three years on this project.
The researchers first got excited when they detected the signature of those amino-acids that are most abundant in the collagen as this could indicate that proteins had survived in situ. They even got more excited when they succeeding in directly sequencing collagen peptides. When they detected blood proteins, it really started looking promising because those are barely preserved. At that stage, it could well be that ancient DNA could also be preserved.
And indeed DNA was present. In tiny amount as the vast majority of sequences generated actually originated from environmental micro-organisms living in the bone. But with Helicos true Single DNA Molecule Sequencing, the researchers managed to identify molecular preservation niches in the bone and experimental conditions that enabled finishing the full genome sequence.
- This was methodologically challenging but clearly some parameters worked better than others, says Professor Eske Willerslev. But sequencing was just half the way really. Professor Willerslev continues:
- Because 700,000 years of evolution and damage, it is not something that does come without any modification to the DNA sequence itself. We had to improve our ability to identify modified and divergent ancient horse sequences by aligning them to the genome of present day horses.
Quite a computational challenge, especially when the level of DNA modification outcompasses that seen in any other Arctic horses from the Late Pleistocene. Dr. Orlando explains:
- Levels of base modifications were extremely high, for some regions even so high that every single cytosine was actually damaged. This, and the phylogenetic position of the ancient horse outside the diversity of any horse ever sequenced, provided clear evidence that the data was real.
Professor Willerslev adds:
- The results of the studies and the applied techniques open up new doors for the exploration of prehistoric living creatures. Now with genomics and proteomics, we can reach ten times further back in time compared to before. And new knowledge about the horse's evolutionary history has been added a history which is considered as a classical example in evolutionary biology and a topic which is taught in high schools and universities.
###
The new results are published in the scientific journal Nature. This major scientific advance has been made possible through the collaboration with researchers from Denmark, China, Canada, USA, Switzerland, UK, Norway, France, Sweden and Saudi Arabia and with financial support from the Danish National Research Foundation.
Contact:
Eske Willerslev
Professor
Natural History Museum
ster Voldgade 5-7
1350 Kbenhavn K
Mobil +45 28751309
Phone: +45 353-21309
Phone (Secretariat): +45 353-21213
Ludovic Antoine Alexandre Orlando
External researcher
Natural History Museum
ster Voldgade 5-7
1350 Kbenhavn K
Mobil: +45 21 84 96 46
Phone: +45 353-21231
Telefon (Sekretariat): +45 353-22222
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
It's 2013. We should all know that there are clear differences between calling something a nerd and calling someone a geek. This is a fact! Slackpropagation created this nifty graph that shows the dividing line on what defines a geek and what defines a nerd. The easiest way to tell the difference? Geeks are fans of a certain subject, nerds are practitioners of that subject. But fret not, geeks can be nerds and nerds can be geeks too!
It's confusing. Read the whole difference here. [Slackprop via TDW]
Monsanto's fiscal third quarter earnings slipped 3 percent, as hits to the agricultural product maker's cotton and soybean segments weighed on results.
The St. Louis company also said Wednesday that it tried to plant a seed for future growth by eating some drought-related expenses in the recently completed quarter.
Monsanto said the 2012 drought that parched stretches of the United States forced it to use South American greenhouses more to produce corn seeds. That contributed to a 7 percent increase in cost of goods sold in this year's quarter. Monsanto decided to eat the higher expenses tied to seed production instead of passing them along through price hikes.
CEO Hugh Grant told analysts during a Wednesday morning call the company saw that as "an investment in our customer base," one they hope helps customer sentiment and profitability next year.
The move was more than just a public relations stunt, according to Morningstar analyst Jeff Stafford. He said Monsanto has turned off some farmers in the past by introducing new seeds at very high prices.
"They are acutely aware of driving prices year over year and what that means in their relationship with farmers," he said.
Overall, Monsanto earned $909 million, or $1.68 per share, in the quarter ended May 31, down from $937 million, or $1.74 per share, a year ago.
Earnings totaled $1.66 per share, not counting a tax matter resolution.
Revenue inched up less than 1 percent to $4.25 billion. In contrast, Monsanto's revenue had soared 17 percent in last year's quarter when the mild spring that preceded the drought allowed farmers to sow crops earlier.
Analysts expected earnings of $1.61 per share on $4.41 billion in revenue for this year's quarter, according to FactSet.
Several analysts cited a lower tax rate as the main factor behind the better-than-expected earnings.
Monsanto Co. makes seeds for crops like corn, soybean, cotton and wheat and crop protection chemicals like the herbicide Roundup. The agricultural giant produces genetically engineered seeds used by farmers for their pest resistance and ability to produce bigger crops.
Many U.S. farmers credited genetic modifications in corn with saving last year's crop from all but total devastation as half of the nation endured the worst drought in 60 years. But these crops also have drawn criticism from organic food advocates who say they are harmful to people and the environment. Last month, protesters organized "March Against Monsanto" rallies in several countries over genetically modified food.
Monsanto has maintained that its seeds improve agriculture by helping farmers produce more from their land while conserving resources such as water and energy.
Corn, which is used for food, fuel, animal feed and soda syrup, is by far Monsanto's largest unit, and revenue from that segment climbed 3 percent to $1.56 billion in the quarter.
But revenue from its soybean and cotton segments both fell. The company saw fewer acres of cotton planted.
Stafford said Brazilian farmers helped pressure the soybean segment because they stopped paying royalties on a brand of seeds.
Revenue from the company's agricultural productivity segment, which includes herbicides, climbed 9 percent to $1.19 billion.
Monsanto, which has touted its corn seed and international growth prospects, said late last month that it expects earnings growth of more than 20 percent in fiscal 2013 from its on-going businesses. It forecast annual adjusted earnings, which exclude some one-time items, of $4.50 to $4.55 per share and reaffirmed that prediction on Wednesday.
Analysts expect, on average, earnings of $4.58 per share.
Shares of Monsanto fell 56 cents to close at $100.84 Wednesday. Its shares had peaked for the past year at $109.33 in mid-May. Monsanto shares are up 7 percent so far in 2013.
June 26, 2013 ? For most terrestrial life on Earth, oxygen is necessary for survival. But the planet's atmosphere did not always contain this life-sustaining substance, and one of science's greatest mysteries is how and when oxygenic photosynthesis -- the process responsible for producing oxygen on Earth through the splitting of water molecules -- first began. Now, a team led by geobiologists at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) has found evidence of a precursor photosystem involving manganese that predates cyanobacteria, the first group of organisms to release oxygen into the environment via photosynthesis.
The findings, outlined in the June 24 early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), strongly support the idea that manganese oxidation -- which, despite the name, is a chemical reaction that does not have to involve oxygen -- provided an evolutionary stepping-stone for the development of water-oxidizing photosynthesis in cyanobacteria.
"Water-oxidizing or water-splitting photosynthesis was invented by cyanobacteria approximately 2.4 billion years ago and then borrowed by other groups of organisms thereafter," explains Woodward Fischer, assistant professor of geobiology at Caltech and a coauthor of the study. "Algae borrowed this photosynthetic system from cyanobacteria, and plants are just a group of algae that took photosynthesis on land, so we think with this finding we're looking at the inception of the molecular machinery that would give rise to oxygen."
Photosynthesis is the process by which energy from the sun is used by plants and other organisms to split water and carbon dioxide molecules to make carbohydrates and oxygen. Manganese is required for water splitting to work, so when scientists began to wonder what evolutionary steps may have led up to an oxygenated atmosphere on Earth, they started to look for evidence of manganese-oxidizing photosynthesis prior to cyanobacteria. Since oxidation simply involves the transfer of electrons to increase the charge on an atom -- and this can be accomplished using light or O2 -- it could have occurred before the rise of oxygen on this planet.
"Manganese plays an essential role in modern biological water splitting as a necessary catalyst in the process, so manganese-oxidizing photosynthesis makes sense as a potential transitional photosystem," says Jena Johnson, a graduate student in Fischer's laboratory at Caltech and lead author of the study.
To test the hypothesis that manganese-based photosynthesis occurred prior to the evolution of oxygenic cyanobacteria, the researchers examined drill cores (newly obtained by the Agouron Institute) from 2.415 billion-year-old South African marine sedimentary rocks with large deposits of manganese.
Manganese is soluble in seawater. Indeed, if there are no strong oxidants around to accept electrons from the manganese, it will remain aqueous, Fischer explains, but the second it is oxidized, or loses electrons, manganese precipitates, forming a solid that can become concentrated within seafloor sediments.
"Just the observation of these large enrichments -- 16 percent manganese in some samples -- provided a strong implication that the manganese had been oxidized, but this required confirmation," he says.
To prove that the manganese was originally part of the South African rock and not deposited there later by hydrothermal fluids or some other phenomena, Johnson and colleagues developed and employed techniques that allowed the team to assess the abundance and oxidation state of manganese-bearing minerals at a very tiny scale of 2 microns.
"And it's warranted -- these rocks are complicated at a micron scale!" Fischer says. "And yet, the rocks occupy hundreds of meters of stratigraphy across hundreds of square kilometers of ocean basin, so you need to be able to work between many scales -- very detailed ones, but also across the whole deposit to understand the ancient environmental processes at work."
Using these multiscale approaches, Johnson and colleagues demonstrated that the manganese was original to the rocks and first deposited in sediments as manganese oxides, and that manganese oxidation occurred over a broad swath of the ancient marine basin during the entire timescale captured by the drill cores.
"It's really amazing to be able to use X-ray techniques to look back into the rock record and use the chemical observations on the microscale to shed light on some of the fundamental processes and mechanisms that occurred billions of years ago," says Samuel Webb, coauthor on the paper and beam line scientist at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory at Stanford University, where many of the study's experiments took place. "Questions regarding the evolution of the photosynthetic pathway and the subsequent rise of oxygen in the atmosphere are critical for understanding not only the history of our own planet, but also the basics of how biology has perfected the process of photosynthesis."
Once the team confirmed that the manganese had been deposited as an oxide phase when the rock was first forming, they checked to see if these manganese oxides were actually formed before water-splitting photosynthesis or if they formed after as a result of reactions with oxygen. They used two different techniques to check whether oxygen was present. It was not -- proving that water-splitting photosynthesis had not yet evolved at that point in time. The manganese in the deposits had indeed been oxidized and deposited before the appearance of water-splitting cyanobacteria. This implies, the researchers say, that manganese-oxidizing photosynthesis was a stepping-stone for oxygen-producing, water-splitting photosynthesis.
"I think that there will be a number of additional experiments that people will now attempt to try and reverse engineer a manganese photosynthetic photosystem or cell," Fischer says. "Once you know that this happened, it all of a sudden gives you reason to take more seriously an experimental program aimed at asking, 'Can we make a photosystem that's able to oxidize manganese but doesn't then go on to split water? How does it behave, and what is its chemistry?' Even though we know what modern water splitting is and what it looks like, we still don't know exactly how it works. There is a still a major discovery to be made to find out exactly how the catalysis works, and now knowing where this machinery comes from may open new perspectives into its function -- an understanding that could help target technologies for energy production from artificial photosynthesis. "
Next up in Fischer's lab, Johnson plans to work with others to try and mutate a cyanobacteria to "go backwards" and perform manganese-oxidizing photosynthesis. The team also plans to investigate a set of rocks from western Australia that are similar in age to the samples used in the current study and may also contain beds of manganese. If their current study results are truly an indication of manganese-oxidizing photosynthesis, they say, there should be evidence of the same processes in other parts of the world.
"Oxygen is the backdrop on which this story is playing out on, but really, this is a tale of the evolution of this very intense metabolism that happened once -- an evolutionary singularity that transformed the planet," Fischer says. "We've provided insight into how the evolution of one of these remarkable molecular machines led up to the oxidation of our planet's atmosphere, and now we're going to follow up on all angles of our findings."
Funding for the research outlined in the PNAS paper, titled "Manganese-oxidizing photosynthesis before the rise of cyanobacteria," was provided by the Agouron Institute, NASA's Exobiology Branch, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, and the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship program. Joseph Kirschvink, Nico and Marilyn Van Wingen Professor of Geobiology at Caltech, also contributed to the study along with Katherine Thomas and Shuhei Ono from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
NEW YORK (Reuters) - "Mad Men" began its sixth and possibly best season with Don Draper reading "Dante's Inferno" - and ended Sunday with him trying to stop some of the sins that lead to its nine circles.
The inferno punishes according to the degree of a person's sin - and Don's sins this season would easily land him in the ninth. But in the season finale, he began to pull back from the life he's created, and to admit to the hellish one he was born into. The episode's final scene found him showing his children the dilapidated former "whore house" where he grew up as the orphaned Dick Whitman. Don looks to his daughter, Sally, who has begun to imitate his penchant for drunkenness and using a fake name.
His look doesn't ask her to forgive him for keeping his latest dirty secret - an affair with his neighbor - but it does seem to ask her to understand why he is the way he is.
Even as Don peels back the mask, he is being out out-Don Drapered by Bob Benson, the total fraud Pete Campbell describes as an "accomplice to murder" after his friend Manolo apparently married Pete's mother and pushed her from a cruise ship. We learned last episode that Benson once served as a manservant to a senior vice president who took him across the Atlantic on another pleasure cruise. We wonder: How long have they fantasized about pushing someone over the railing?
There's little question that Manolo's motive was financial: As Bob has told us repeatedly, he doesn't like women. But we know, as Manolo didn't, that Pete's mother was broke. In the finale's one unlikely scene, Pete and his brother convince themselves that Manolo will slink away once he learns no fortune awaits him - and both seem willing to let that happen.
Bob also manages to get Pete kicked off the Chevy account by revealing Pete's own dark secret: He can't drive. As Bob's machinations lead to humiliation and even a connection to a murder, we see that he is reaching levels of manipulation that even Don hasn't matched.
But Don may be winning at another game: Staying out of hell's hottest circles. Here are the levels of the inferno, and which "Mad Men" characters Dante might place within them:
First Circle (Limbo): The domain of the unbaptized and virtuous pagans. Lots of "Mad Men" characters are unbaptized, but are any really virtuous? This seems like only the domain of babies and children. Maybe Dante would place Dr. Rosen and Michael Ginsburg here just for not being Christian. But elsewhere he encounters two virtuous non-Christians in Heaven. If Ginsburg and especially Rosen don't deserve a happy afterlife, we don't know who does.
Second Circle (Lust): I'm hard-pressed to think of a "Mad Men" character who doesn't lust - again, with the exception of babies, children, Rosen, Ginsburg and Burt Peterson. Although Benson seems more driven by opportunism than lust.
Third Circle (Gluttony): Again. Since gluttony includes booze, nearly anyone on the show could end up here - except kids, Rosen, Ginsburg and Benson. Pete, Burt, Joan, Trudy and several secondary characters also seem okay on the gluttony front. (Actually, Trudy seems safe on every front. You blew it, Pete.) In the season finale, Don also seemed to be forswearing drunkenness. We'll see how that goes.
Fourth Circle (Greed): Since most "Mad Men" characters are financially secure, they seem driven more by a desire for power than for money. But that's still greed. And the power they desire is usually the power to keep others from challenging them. Don is greedy in his desire to keep Ted from taking over his control of the agency, which doesn't work out in the finale: He is asked to take an indefinite leave, just as poor pants-wetting Freddy Rumsen was asked to do in Season 2. And when last we saw Peggy, she was sitting in Don's office chair, perhaps planning a redesign.
But in Don's favor, he seems to have deliberately sabotaged himself by delivering Hershey perhaps the most awkward pitch in the history of advertising. He may also have redeemed himself a bit by unselfishly letting Ted go to California.
Fifth Circle (Anger): This could be a lot of people. Don gets angry at Ted, who gets angry at Don. Peggy is also angry at Ted. Sally is very, very angry at Don. So, probably, is Megan. Pete is understandably angry at Bob, but is it really a sin to be mad at an "accomplice to murder," or a cheating father? Really Dante? (We never said the Inferno was a perfect system.)
Sixth Circle (Heresy): Almost everyone on "Mad Men" is guilty of thinking outside orthodoxy. That's what they're paid to do. You know who else thought outside the accepted orthodoxy? Jesus Christ. Again, not a perfect system.
Seventh Circle (Violence): Not many on "Mad Men" are violent - except for Don, who, okay, punched a minister, and Manolo, who pitched an old lady off a ship. Don also got in a pathetic fight a while back with Duck Phillips, who is apparently helping replace Don at Sterling Cooper & Partners. I'm pretty sure Don would prefer the seventh circle of hell, where he would probably be in the outer ring reserved for those who hurt other people and property. But honestly, I don't think Don has a consistent enough history of violence to end up there.
Eighth Circle (Fraud): I'm fairly certain there's a nice table reserved for Bob and Manolo. Don seems to be trying fervently to cancel his reservation.
Ninth Circle (Treachery): We're well accustomed to Don's lust, gluttony, greed, anger, heresy, occasional violence and fraud. What made him truly despicable this season was his treachery. Rosen is perhaps the best human being on "Mad Men" - remember his skiing to the hospital to perform heart surgery? - and Don had an affair with his wife. (It was good Catholic Sylvia Rosen, in fact, who told Don to read "The Inferno.")
Don may have tried to set things right by getting the Rosens' son out of Vietnam, but Don committed another betrayal in the process: Ted pulled some strings on Don's behalf to get the boy into the Air National Guard, and Don in turn shook Ted's hand and agreed to work together. But he quickly betrayed Ted by pursuing the Sunkist account, once he realized Ted's interest in Peggy.
The Sunkist account may also have given Don a chance to another make-good, however, since Don agreed to let Ted to go to California to handle it.
Does this get Don out of the Ninth Circle? We have one season to go.
The largest source of U.S. carbon emissions comes from the Transportation Sector?s petroleum consumption.? The Federal Government has attempted to reduce Transportation petroleum consumption by requiring increased Corporate Average Fuel Efficiency (CAFE) standards for new ?light duty vehicles? (LDV) since 1978.? While the new CAFE standards succeeded in reducing Transportation Sector petroleum consumption 1978-1995, the continued growth in the number of LDV?s and annual ?vehicle miles traveled? (VMT) has led to almost a continuous increase in petroleum consumption until 2007.??
Recent analysis of the factors that have contributed most towards reduced U.S. carbon emissions since 2007 indicates that CAFE standards are the second largest contributing factor.? To build on this recent success and further reduce future U.S. carbon emissions from LDV?s what innovative technologies will be needed to make substantially greater progress?
Recent CAFE History and Performance
The Obama Administration recently increased the Federal CAFE standards.? While these latest LDV fuel efficiency standards are a good build on the previous Administration?s CAFE improvements, the DOE/EIA still projects that the U.S. Transportation Sector?s total petroleum consumption will remain essentially constant through 2023.? Re: AEO 2013 Table 11: by Sector Transportation.? ? Past CAFE standards performance unfortunately stagnated through the 1990?s and most the 2000?s.? This was not only due to increased number of LDV?s and AMT, but also relative small improvement in CAFE standards during most the period and numerous ?loopholes? that compromised the performance of past standards.? Past loopholes included classifying SUV?s as trucks with less efficient CAFE standards, giving auto manufacturers credits for producing ?flex-fuel vehicles? that rarely operate on E-85, allowing significant non-compliance luxury-high performance vehicle sales with nominal penalties, and, very significant LDV performance differences between actual on-road fuel efficiencies and the CAFE standards.?
One of the largest differences between actual LDV on-road fuel efficiency or ?miles per gallon? (mpg) and CAFE standards (excluding all regulatory loopholes) has to do with how the CAFE tests are carried out.? The CAFE tests are normally carried out in a laboratory on a dynamometer test stand based on a city/highway standard speeds of 55/45 ?miles per hour? (mph).? No accessories such as ?air conditions? (AC) are used during testing.? While the CAFE standard test does meet the need for accuracy and data consistency between different vehicles-years, consumers early on recognized that actual on-road driving mpg rarely duplicated the CAFE window sticker.? This has to do with the fact that LDV mpg performance is a function of how and where the vehicle is actually driven.?
To correct for the differences between ?unadjusted? laboratory CAFE performance data and actual LDV operations the EPA has developed an ?adjusted? mileage efficiency to better inform consumers of expected on-road actual mpg.? The adjusted new LDV mpg data are based on driving conditions closer to what most vehicle owners should expect including more realistic highway/city mph speeds and use of vehicle accessories such as AC.? Refer to the following graph.
U.S. CAFE and EPA Adjusted Vehicle Fuel Mileage ? 1975-2009
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Data source: EPA ?Light Duty Automotive Technology and Fuel Economy Trends?.? Note: LAB ? unadjusted CAFE laboratory data and EPA Adj. ? adjusted CAFE standard to more reasonably duplicate actual on-road LDV fuel efficiencies.
These adjusted mpg fuel efficiency data indicate that on average consumers should expect to get only about 80% of posted CAFE standard gasoline mpg determined in the laboratory.??
Vehicle Fuel Efficiency is a Function of Technology and Driver Behavior
Most drivers recognize that in-town stop-and-go driving LDV mpg performance is much poorer than constant speed highway driving (within speed limits).? This has to do with the normal engine performance efficiencies, which are lower in acceleration-speedup modes than at constant speeds.? Also if the driver is more aggressive like a teenager racing from stoplight-to-stoplight, the vehicle mpg will be much lower than less aggressive drivers.? Professional Racecar drivers primarily operate in only two modes: on the accelerator or on the brakes. ?This aggressive driving mode leads to maximum average vehicle speeds and minimum lap-times, but also substantially reduces fuel efficiency.
Over the years Automotive Manufacturers have made numerous improvements and innovations in order to meet CAFE standards.? Besides making many LDV?s smaller and lighter, a broad number of improvements have been developed to substantially increase ?internal combustion engine? (ICE) motor efficiency and performance (horsepower (hp), torque?and acceleration).? Engine efficiency innovations have included a broad number of ICE upgrades including direct fuel injection, computer controlled fuel:air ratios, new turbochargers and transmissions, and other efficiency upgrades.? The development of new ?hybrid electric vehicle? (HEV) technologies has also made significant contributions towards increased overall LDV fleet efficiency.? One of the most innovative technologies is the HEV drive-train with ?regenerative braking?. ?Rather than wasting the energy from slowing-stopping the vehicle (brake pad wear-heat loss), the regenerative braking system stores some of the energy by charging a battery, which later powers the vehicle (EV mode) and displaces some ICE fuel consumption.? Another innovative technology is an engine-integrated starter-generator system (ISG) that automatically stops-starts the ICE and saves fuel from wasteful idling.? ??
All of the above referenced technology innovations and use of smaller, lighter vehicles has allowed LDV Manufacturers to meet their CAFE standard requirements and general consumer market demands.? The problem statement continues to be how to best further increase actual average LDV fuel efficiency, and the opportunity is how to possibly narrow the difference between actual on-road mpg performance and the unadjusted CAFE standards.? ?If the actual on-road or EPA adjusted LDV mpg could be increased more towards the unadjusted CAFE standards it should be possible to further and very significantly reduce U.S. petroleum consumption and associated carbon emissions.
One of the highest mileage HEV?s available today is the Toyota Prius with combined highway/city average of 50 mpg.? But, even the Prius will fail to get its advertised fuel mileage if driven very aggressively; maximum acceleration between stops and hard on the brakes at each stop.? How can the Federal Government and Automotive Manufacturers develop a new ?Smart Driver? technology needed to ensure drivers do not waste petroleum motor fuels and increase their LDV carbon emissions?
Innovative ?Smart Driver? Technology Development
Maximizing ICE LDV fuel efficiency began over 40 years ago.? One of the first technology innovations involved monitoring the intake manifold vacuum (via a mechanical vacuum gauge).? Maximizing fuel efficiency required maximizing manifold measured vacuum and minimizing vacuum loss during acceleration (for carburetor fuel systems).? The decision to minimize loss of vacuum and fuel consumption was totally at the driver?s discretion.? The next historic development to help maximize ICE LDV fuel efficiency was ?cruise control?.? Operating on cruise control to maintain constant speeds helps maximize LDV fuel efficiency under most conditions.
Over the years the technologies of ICE?s and advanced efficiency controls evolved.? Earlier ICE electronic controls were focused primarily on tailpipe emissions.? Fortunately, significant synergies exist between minimum tailpipe emissions and maximum fuel efficiencies.? Advanced emission controls helped limit the amount of fuel consumption (and unfortunately earlier LDV ICE performances) in order to minimize tailpipe emissions.? Use of emission control systems was not discretionary and required by law.?
In recent years a broad range of ICE technology innovations (as previously discussed) have not only increased fuel efficiency, restored past lost ICE performance, and have done so while meeting all EPA tailpipe emission requirements.? While compact LDV?s such as the current (HEV) Prius almost meet the latest new 54.5 mpg CAFE standard required in 2025, other larger LDV?s such as full size automobiles, SUV?s and trucks will face a potentially enormous technology challenge in order to comply with future CAFE standards (and do so without taking advantage of loopholes that can result in much less than 54.5 mpg CAFE performance).? One of the very important factors to meeting future CAFE standards will be ?engine-advanced efficiency controls? (EAEC) technology development.? In addition to further ICE mechanical upgrades and developments, advanced EAEC programming would monitor engine-vehicle performance and driving conditions and adjust fuel:air ratios, ignition timing, transmission shifting, etc. to minimize tailpipe emissions and maximize overall vehicle fuel efficiency and driving performance.
All vehicles built today have engine computer systems to control tailpipe emissions and help minimize fuel consumption.? Tailpipe emissions are usually programmed as the first priority function over engine performance and fuel efficiency.? To maximize the fuel efficiency of future state-of-art LDV?s generally involves optimizing engine performance under conditions of acceleration, constant speed and slowing/stopping.? Many vehicles have computers that monitor and continuously display actual LDV mpg performance, to help drivers possibly adjust their driving habits to reduce fuel consumption.? Increasing fuel efficiency by reducing the rate of acceleration, maintaining constant speed where possible and minimize braking is still left up to the discretion of individual drivers.?
To reduce the average ?unadjusted-adjusted? CAFE mpg differences in the future will very likely mean slowing down somewhat for most any type or advancement in ICE, HEV and possibly PHEV?or EV?technologies (yes, maximum acceleration and variable speeds can waste electric power capacity in PHEV/EV?s also).? This means reduced acceleration, maximizing constant speed-cruise control and reduced braking needed to safely navigate city roadways and inter-city highways.? The solution to increasing any vehicle?s fuel efficiency is to develop more advanced energy efficiency computer control systems or what could be called ?Smart Driver?computer control technology.? Effective Smart Driver ICE LDV computer control systems would possibly take the some of the current vehicle operating discretion away from the driver and make maximizing fuel consumption of equal importance to controlling tailpipe emissions.
Innovative ?Smart Driver? Technology Could Build on Developing ?Driverless Car? Technology
A high priority is being placed on developing the technologies required to increase LDV fuel efficiency.? The DOE sponsored Oak Ridge National Laboratory research project is an excellent example.? In addition to ICE technology innovations, a new evolving technology, Goggle?s ?Driverless Car?, is receiving a lot of interest and support.
The Driverless Car technology includes very detailed programming of existing roads mapping with speed limits data and a sophisticated GPS. ?In addition, the installation of various motion & light sensors, combined with complex programming needed to address all driving variables, including stop lights and the variables that can?t be pre-programmed such as other moving or stopped vehicles, and other changing-mobile road obstacles or potential hazards.? The combination of these technologies allows Driverless Cars to safely navigate through traffic from most any starting point to a programmed final destination automatically (driverless).
Developing a new Smart Driver technology to maximize LDV fuel efficiency could be based largely on both existing EAEC and Driverless Car technologies.? New Smart Driver controlled and higher fuel efficiency LDV?s could be programmed to optimize vehicle overall performance needed to travel from any starting point to final destination.? The level of needed acceleration and reduced speed/stopping could be optimized around established roads/highways, speed limits, and stop signs/lights.? While the driver would still operate the vehicle?s steering manually, have the option of changing routes, and some flexibility over the accelerator/brakes, the feasible new Smart Driver computer control technology would help maintain optimal acceleration, constant speeds (within established speed limits) and anticipate slowing/stopping as needed to optimize and maximize overall LDV fuel efficiency (and minimize carbon emissions).
Potential Benefits of Innovative ?Smart Driver? Technology
The U.S. Transportation Sector LDV?s currently (2012) consume 8.4 million barrels per day (MBD) of petroleum motor fuels.? Consumption of these petroleum motor fuels contributes about 1,050 million metric tons (MMT) per year of total U.S. carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions; of the total U.S. 5,290 MMT CO2 per year in 2012. ?Installing new Smart Driver technology in all ICE LDV?s has the potential of making the difference between actual on-road fuel efficiency and unadjusted (lab.) CAFE standards essentially zero.? This would reduce LDV fuel consumption by up to 20% and reduce current carbon emissions by up to (1050 x 0.2 =) 210 MMT CO2 per year.? This CO2 reduction is equivalent to shutting down up to almost 14% of all existing Power Sector coal generation capacity.? In addition, total petroleum oil imports could be reduced by up to (8.4 x 0.2 =) 1.7 MBD, which represents almost 80% of all current highest risk OPEC Persian Gulf imports.? This would substantially improve current U.S. Energy Security.? ?
One additional and very significant potential benefit of Smart Driver computer control technology upgrades could be increased vehicle operating safety.? By better controlling vehicle acceleration, maximum speeds, and the addition of anti-collision technologies, a new Smart Driver technology could also substantially reduce vehicle collisions, injuries and fatalities.? Vehicle fatalities currently average 30,000-35,000 per year in the U.S.? A new Smart Driver technology could reduce a very large percentage of these fatalities in future years.
The development and installation of Smart Driver (or equivalent) technology can make future LDV?s much more efficient, less polluting and safer to operate.? The next challenge will be to get Consumers to accept the fact that the operation of their LDV?s must slow down a bit and not allow exceeding speed limits.? Yes, driving future Smart Driver controlled LDV?s may be a little boring to those who prefer to drive more aggressively, but what?s more important in the future?? Reduced carbon emissions, increased energy security and saving thousands of people?s lives, or allowing and tolerating more aggressive, riskier driving habits.?
Japanese artist Rie Hosokai, of Daisy Balloon, created this amazing piece of high Lego fashion for Tokyo's "Piece of Peace" charity exhibit at the Parco Museum. Structurally it's simply stunning (albeit a bit Disney Princessy). The construction, contour and shape are based on Hosokai's balloon dress. As an item of haute couture, it's not so utilitarian. But as an avant-garde work-of-Lego-art it's simply stunning.
Here's how Hosokai explains the meaning behind the piece:
There is fear in that we are all different from one another, but that is also the gateway to self-consciousness. Self-consciousness was once whole, but in the modern trend where all things whole get broken down, it too is about to get deconstructed. For that reason, people now seek to reconstruct their consciousness by extending it onto others. Through this process of extension, we have learned to unravel things down to their basic elements. We are succeeding at digging up new knowledge of what it is we all share. This knowledge that bonds different people together seems to appear suddenly, but in reality it is already coded into our planet, our universe. We construct things from the most basic building blocks. What are we to discover from this process? To find the answer, we must continue to turn our gaze toward those around us. - Text by Arata Sasaki [Daisy Balloon]