Putting the zoom into electric cars

Watch out, Detroit. A new crop of electric-vehicle startups aims to put a dent in the Big Three by applying the latest in high-technology engineering and design.

http://money.cnn.com/2007/11/19/smbusiness/electric_cars.fsb/

Steve Fambro didn't get into the car business to save the world. He did it to go faster on freeways.

Fambro was driving 36 miles a day, during rush hour, to and from his biotech job in La Jolla, Calif. As traffic slowed to a crawl, motorcycles whizzed past in the carpool lane. He wanted to do the same, and after trying a motorbike and becoming worried about his safety, he decided he wanted to do the same in an enclosed vehicle. He bought a hybrid, but as an engineer he still yearned for a vehicle that got even better fuel economy.

That left electric cars. The selection was discouraging: tiny, boxy vehicles with a short range that took a long time to charge. "Anything you could buy looked as if it was designed in the 1970s," says Fambro.

So he decided to start his own car company. In November 2008, Fambro will begin selling the Aptera. That means "wingless" in Greek, but don't think this car won't fly. It's a sleek two-seat, three-wheel electric vehicle with a top speed of 95 miles an hour, and it comes in two versions: all electric and hybrid.

Made of a Space Age composite material, the hybrid gets 300 miles per gallon, while the electric goes 100 miles on a single three- to six-hour charge. And it looks great in the carpool lane.

For the first time since the early 20th century, America is seeing a flowering of entrepreneurship in the auto industry. Today at least 11 new electric car companies, each working on a wide range of technologies, have launched or plan to launch models. Several of the startups are clustered around Silicon Valley, drawing on the brainpower and pocketbooks of high-tech engineers and venture capitalists. These upstarts are not modest. They believe they can do what major automakers have failed to do: bring an electric car to the mass market.

Electric cars, to be sure, are not new. About a century ago Thomas Edison joined forces with Henry Ford to develop an electric car that would be as affordable as the Model T. In those early days of the automobile, hundreds of manufacturers all over the country tried to compete making both electric and gasoline-powered cars. But economies of scale were not on their side, and small shops - some 415 of them in 1914, each of which produced a few handmade cars a year - eventually gave way to the Big Three.

Photo Gallery: Electric cars made by small firms
The internal-combustion engine could be refueled more conveniently than a battery could be recharged, especially on long trips, and that advantage all but killed electric auto technology. Over the years entrepreneurs would occasionally emerge with a new design to challenge the Big Three, yet all failed. The two most memorable flameouts: Preston Tucker in 1948 with his Tucker Torpedo and John De Lorean, with his silver gull-winged sports car in the 1970s - both of which used internal-combustion engines.

So why does today's new breed of small, renegade car company think it can succeed where so many other auto startups have failed? The entrepreneurs and investors behind the firms point to four factors: consumer desire for measures to address global warming, an abundance of investment capital, new breakthroughs in fiber composite body material, and the availability of cheap computing power and software that help simulate design challenges long before new cars hit the road.

By taking aim at many markets, the electric auto makers are multiplying their chances of success. Tesla Motors of San Carlos, Calif., will sell in early 2008 a speedy $98,000 electric roadster for the Hollywood and hedge fund set (George Clooney and the Google guys have mailed in their down payments).

Entrepreneur Ian Wright, based in Burlingame, Calif., is also aiming at the sports market with the Wrightspeed X1, which he hopes to sell in about two years for about $100,000. The X1 prototype's three-second acceleration from zero to 60 mph makes it one of the fastest autos in the world - second only to the French-made Bugatti Veyron, a 16-cylinder gas-gulping beast that is just half-a-second faster and goes for $1.25 million.

If the Tesla and Wrightspeed give you sticker shock, don't worry. Phoenix Motorcars of Ontario, Calif., is aiming at businesses, and in early 2008 plans to sell a $47,000 electric pickup truck that can be recharged in ten minutes. For those looking for an affordable commuter car, Aptera's gas hybrid will be available in 2008 for $27,000, with an all-electric version for $30,000 (you'll have to plug it into a regular household socket for a few hours after driving 100 miles).

A Toronto company called Zenn sells an electric car and is counting on a radical new kind of power pack from a Cedar Park, Texas, startup called EEStor to next build an Aptera rival. And in 2006 a Norwegian investment firm bought Think, an electric car company once owned by Ford. It plans to launch the Think City commuter car in Europe in 2008 and in the U.S. market in 2009.

Dean Kamen, the Manchester, N.H.-based inventor of the Segway scooter, is working with Think to adapt his Stirling engine to the car, which would extend its 110 mile range. GM has hired A123, a Watertown, Mass., startup to supply lithium batteries for its Volt hybrid, due to launch in 2010. Former SAP executive Shai Agassi has raised $200 million for Project Better Place, a firm that plans to build a network of stations to recharge all these electric cars.

Driving this global network of entrepreneurs is a very global problem. In the U.S., cars and trucks are responsible for some 20% of humanity's emissions of greenhouse gases, mostly carbon dioxide. Switching from internal-combustion engines to electric-powered vehicles will seriously mitigate the effects of global warming.

Skeptics point out that the juice for electric cars must be generated by power plants, most of which are fired by natural gas or coal and spew their own carbon dioxide. But 30% of the electricity on the national grid comes from clean sources such as nuclear, solar, wind, and hydroelectric power. According to a study sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy, using electric vehicles actually results in as much as a 40% reduction in greenhouse gases, depending on the location.

Few of these new car companies are aiming to grow to the size of Toyota or GM. Most will be satisfied if they can become profitable niche players; others hope to sell or license their technology to the big guys. Says Bill Green, a partner at Vantage-Point Venture Partners, which has invested in Tesla Motors: "No one argues today that the Tesla will serve anything but a small subset of the market. But it has changed the conversation. It is a historic and dramatic increase in performance. The big car companies will look at Tesla and say, 'Hey, maybe I can use that technology in my cars.' "

The rise of the jetpack
Venture capital firms are betting big on that outcome too. Elon Musk, co-founder of PayPal, used part of the fortune he made selling his company to eBay (Charts, Fortune 500) to help bankroll Tesla Motors. Besides Vantagepoint, investors include Google (Charts, Fortune 500) founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin and Silicon Valley VC firm Draper Jurvetson. Tesla has raised more than $100 million. Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byer, along with other investors, has put $7 million into EEStor.

What has these investors excited is that technology is helping small companies rethink the dynamics of car design. Take the Aptera: This aerodynamic, low-slung commuter car has a composite body, made of carbon fiber, fiberglass, and Kevlar, that looks like the cockpit of a jet yet can fit two adult passengers and a child in a baby seat. It weighs 1,500 pounds, compared with the U.S. industry average of 3,455 pounds. Because it has only three wheels, the Aptera will be classified as a motorcycle in most states. But it's beefier than it looks. One inch shorter than a Toyota Prius, the Aptera can still fit a surfboard in the trunk after folding down the passenger seat. The vehicle has passed slalom tests for stability and handling.

Odd, delightful features abound. A solar-assisted air-conditioning system will run on sunny days even when the car is turned off, keeping the interior cool for the driver's return. The covered wheels hang on the ends of protruding axles, leading one auto industry wag to remark that the vehicle looks like "Batman's girlfriend's car." Fambro makes no apologies: "Most auto designs put styling first and function second," he says. "The way cars are designed, half the energy they need is just to push the air out of the way."

Fambro's aim was to change the styling to reduce the drag of the car as much as possible. He succeeded: The Aptera will have a drag one-third that of a today's average car and less than half that of the Prius, the industry champion of low wind resistance.

Fambro created his groundbreaking design on a budget. It would have cost him $10,000 a day to test the car's aerodynamics in a wind tunnel, so Fambro found some software - the same that NASA uses to test the drag of its space vehicles - for just $50,000.

Not your average GPS
The simulation lets him make a change in the style of the car and see the effect on drag very quickly. One result: The car has no side-view mirrors. Instead the driver has 180-degree rear visibility on a videoscreen with the help of cameras mounted on the back of the car. "Ten years ago we couldn't do that kind of testing. And five years ago we couldn't afford it," says Fambro.

His engineers can also use the computer to simulate 50,000 miles of driving, including over potholes, and test the stress on the vehicle parts. (A prototype of the car has been pushed to its limits on an actual test track.) Because the body is made of a composite, capital costs are low compared with those required to build a typical steel car. It can take as much as $1 billion to set up the facilities for the die stamping, welding, and assembly of a new vehicle, but Aptera can make composite parts with a tolerance of 0.001 of an inch quickly and cheaply. "It's an entirely new way of making structural products," says Fambro. He estimates that today's computing power is so fast that he can do with three employees "what a big company such as Boeing ten years ago took a few hundred people to do."

It's one thing to build a prototype; it's another to manufacture complex products in large numbers on time and on budget. Toyota (Charts), with some of the best auto engineers in the world, took years to work the kinks out of the Prius. Aptera must also build or piggyback onto a dealer network to sell and service the cars. That takes capital, skilled manpower, and time. Aptera's all-electric model should at least be very easy to maintain. It has no transmission, and its electric motor has only one moving part, compared with about 400 for regular engines. Its mechanics may need software degrees, but at least they'll have clean hands.

Even if Fambro succeeds in building an affordable, energy-efficient commuter car, the impact on the market, at least in the short run, will be minimal. He hopes to sell around 3,000 to 4,000 Apteras in the first year of production, marketing mostly to buyers in California, Arizona, and Nevada, and then ramp up to about 10,000 cars a year soon after that. Meanwhile, GM (Charts, Fortune 500) alone churns out about 300,000 cars a month. Fambro says he plans to build Aptera into a major car company, but like many entrepreneurs, he is willing to be flexible. "If Toyota or Hyundai offered to buy us," he says slyly, "we would certainly consider it."

Eighth wonder of the world? The stunning temples secretly carved out below ground by 'paranormal' eccentric

Eighth wonder of the world? The stunning temples secretly carved out below ground by 'paranormal' eccentric
by HAZEL COURTENEY - More by this author »

Last updated at 09:58am on 22nd November 2007

Comments (16)

Nestling in the foothills of the Alps in northern Italy, 30 miles from the ancient city of Turin, lies the valley of Valchiusella. Peppered with medieval villages, the hillside scenery is certainly picturesque.


But it is deep underground, buried into the ancient rock, that the region's greatest wonders are concealed.

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Hall of the Earth: An amazing room built on the 'supernatural' visions of its creator


Here, 100ft down and hidden from public view, lies an astonishing secret - one that has drawn comparisons with the fabled city of Atlantis and has been dubbed 'the Eighth Wonder of the World' by the Italian government.

For weaving their way underneath the hillside are nine ornate temples, on five levels, whose scale and opulence take the breath away.

Constructed like a three-dimensional book, narrating the history of humanity, they are linked by hundreds of metres of richly decorated tunnels and occupy almost 300,000 cubic feet - Big Ben is 15,000 cubic feet.

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Light fantastic: The giant glass dome of the Hall of Mirrors

Play time: Children look happy in the amazing surroundings
Few have been granted permission to see these marvels.

Indeed, the Italian government was not even aware of their existence until a few years ago.

But the 'Temples of Damanhur' are not the great legacy of some long-lost civilisation, they are the work of a 57-year-old former insurance broker from northern Italy who, inspired by a childhood vision, began digging into the rock.

It all began in the early Sixties when Oberto Airaudi was aged ten. From an early age, he claims to have experienced visions of what he believed to be a past life, in which there were amazing temples.

Around these he dreamed there lived a highly evolved community who enjoyed an idyllic existence in which all the people worked for the common good.

More bizarrely still, Oberto appeared to have had a supernatural ability: the gift of "remote viewing" - the ability to travel in his mind's eye to describe in detail the contents of any building.

"My goal was to recreate the temples from my visions," he says.

Oberto - who prefers to use the name 'Falco' - began by digging a trial hole under his parent's home to more fully understand the principals of excavation.

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Breathtaking: The miles of tunnels enable air to circulate

House of secrets: Below this house is the Damanhurian temple which is one of the largest temple complexes in the world

But it was only as he began a successful career as an insurance broker that he began to search for his perfect site.

In 1977, he selected a remote hillside where he felt the hard rock would sustain the structures he had in mind.

A house was built on the hillside and Falco moved in with several friends who shared his vision. Using hammers and picks, they began their dig to create the temples of Damanhur - named after the ancient subterranean Egyptian temple meaning City of Light - in August 1978.

As no planning permission had been granted, they decided to share their scheme only with like-minded people.

Volunteers, who flocked from around the world, worked in four-hour shifts for the next 16 years with no formal plans other than Falco's sketches and visions, funding their scheme by setting up small businesses to serve the local community.

By 1991, several of the nine chambers were almost complete with stunning murals, mosaics, statues, secret doors and stained glass windows. But time was running out on the secret.

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Hall of Spheres: Creator Oberto Airaudi based his creation on wonderful visions

Bright window: The window decorations have a church-stained window theme

The first time the police came it was over alleged tax evasion and still the temples lay undiscovered. But a year later the police swooped on the community demanding: "Show us these temples or we will dynamite the entire hillside."

Falco and his colleagues duly complied and opened the secret door to reveal what lay beneath.

Three policemen and the public prosecutor hesitantly entered, but as they stooped down to enter the first temple - named the Hall of the Earth - their jaws dropped.

Inside was a circular chamber measuring 8m in diameter.

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Hall of mirrors: The hall has a classical Greek feel

Egyptian wall paintings: Damanhurian art is greatly influenced by both Egyptian and Celtic sytles

A central sculpted column, depicting a three dimensional man and woman, supported a ceiling of intricately painted glass.

The astonished group walked on to find sculpted columns covered with gold leaf, more than 8m high.

Stunned by what they had found, the authorities decided to seize the temples on behalf of the government.

"By the time they had seen all of the chambers, we were told to continue with the artwork, but to cease further building, as we had not been granted planning permission," says Esperide Ananas, who has written a new book called Damanhur, Temples Of Humankind.

Retrospective permission was eventually granted and today the 'Damanhurians' even have their own university, schools, organic supermarkets, vineyards, farms, bakeries and award-winning eco homes.

They do not worship a spiritual leader, though their temples have become the focus for group meditation.

'They are to remind people that we are all capable of much more than we realise and that hidden treasures can be found within every one of us once you know how to access them,' says Falco.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/worldnews.html?in_article_id=495538&in_page_id=1811

Toward A New Generation Of 'Greener' Consumer Products

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/11/071119111919.htm
ScienceDaily (Nov. 19, 2007)

Consumers will have access to medicines, cosmetics, and other products that are "greener," less expensive, and more environmentally friendly than ever before, thanks to new manufacturing processes now under development, according to an article scheduled for the Nov. 19 issue of Chemical & Engineering News.

The article, by C&EN Senior Editor Stephen K. Ritter, explains that the processes use so-called supercritical carbon dioxide, a phase of carbon dioxide with both liquid and gaseous traits and that is heralded as a nontoxic replacement for conventional manufacturing solvents.

Ritter notes that while supercritical carbon dioxide shows promise for carrying out greener industrial catalytic processes, it also can provide a means for replacing inefficient chemical separations.

The new processes help reduce the use of conventional organic solvents, reduce energy consumption, and reduce the loss of costly and sometimes toxic metal catalysts. These "advances may allow for greener product separations, which typically make up the bulk of the cost of industrial processes," Ritter states.

Adapted from materials provided by American Chemical Society.

Unveiled: Aptera Typ-1 100% Electric and Series Hybrid Vehicles

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/11/unveiled_aptera.php

by Collin Dunn, Seattle, Nov 19 TREEHUGGER


Ever since we first saw the Aptera, we've been waiting for this: today, the company officially pulled the curtain back the Typ-1, the funky three-wheeler with jaw-dropping efficiency stats. After some speculation about diesel engines and parallel hybrid modes, about how the prototype would hold up in a crash, here's the real deal.

Aptera will be available in two models: all-electric and series hybrid. The electric version is slated for delivery in 2008 with the hybrid model to follow (for more on the difference between series and parallel hybrids, check out our Green Basics discussion of the topic). The all-electric model has a range of 120 miles. The plug-in series hybrid has achieved more than 300 miles per gallon with a range of more than 600 miles. Both will be available for "less than $30,000," though exact pricing hasn't been announced. So, what'll that sizable chunk of change get you?

You'll get some pretty slick features, including solar cells embedded under the roof operate an always-on climate control system, ensuring the interior never gets too hot or too cold, and a computer-controlled “Eyes Forward” vision system. By replacing the side mirrors with embedded cameras that display a 180-degree rear view in the front of the instrument panel, Eyes Forward "gives the driver complete situational awareness without taking their eyes off of the road."

Fully refundable reservation deposits of $500 are now being accepted from California residents on the Aptera website. The company will initially deliver vehicles in southern California, then in northern California and to other regions nationwide; cross your fingers that we'll actually see these on the road before buying a 2009 calendar. ::Aptera via ::Business Wire (sub req'd)

Update: Check out the video below to see Aptera in action.

(::YouTube link)

Trumpeter Swans Re-established In Ontario, Canada

ScienceDaily (Nov. 16, 2007) — Originally native to Ontario, the trumpeter swan disappeared from Eastern Canada early in the 20th century. Restoration efforts were initiated in the early 1980s to reintroduce the trumpeter swan to its former range. Through conservation efforts the Ontario population has reached 1000, with at least 131 breeding pairs, and the future looks bright.

How the Swans Were Reintroduced

The trumpeter swan’s extirpation from eastern Canada roughly 200 years ago was primarily due to hunting pressure. Populations remaining in the western prairies were also severely affected by over-hunting and were eventually greatly reduced. These populations have since rebounded to the tens of thousands, while the Ontario population numbered 400 swans in 2002.

In 1982 biologist Harry Lumsden initiated the Ontario Trumpeter Swan Re-introduction Program.The first captive pair arrived at the Wye Marsh Wildlife Centre in 1988, and were named Big Guy and Lady Girl (or Wye and Marie to some). In 1990, Wye Marsh staff witnessed the hatching of two eggs, the first trumpeter swan cygnets known to hatch in the Wye Marsh in over 200 years. A snapping turtle predated one of the cygnets shortly after hatching, while the other, a female, survived to affectionately become known as Pig Pen, who in 1993 raised the first known wild family of trumpeter swans in Ontario in over 200 years.

A recent report authored by Mr. Harry Lumsden, the coordinator of the Ontario Trumpeter Swan Program, has confirmed for the first time in the program’s history, the objectives have been attained in reaching a self sustaining population of trumpeter swans. At this time, records have confirmed that there are now an estimated 1000 individuals in the province of Ontario and an estimated 131 breeding pairs. Every healthy individual and breeding pair is an extremely valuable asset to the Trumpeter Swan Program as their success will largely influence the continuation of an increasing population.

Originally native to Ontario, the trumpeter swan disappeared from Eastern Canada early in the 20th century. Restoration efforts were initiated in the early 1980’s to reintroduce the trumpeter swan to its former range.

Wye Marsh joined restoration efforts in 1988 with Wye Marsh staff and volunteers monitoring approximately one third of the Ontario trumpeter swan population.

Swans of Wye Marsh

New to the Wye Marsh Trumpeter Swan Program is one permanent resident swan housed in the pond at the treatment centre. This swan is a male, named Roscoe. Last fall, Roscoe experienced a wing injury that has left him flightless. Although it is unfortunate that he will no longer be able to fly or survive on his own in the wild, he now has a safe place to live, and will be cared for. The swans living quarters provide them with a natural setting, which is also close enough to allow viewing for educational purposes.

Shifting Support For Swans

As the swans continue to multiply, there are some changes that must occur in their care, including a decreased attempt to feed swans throughout the growing season when a natural food source is plentiful. A decreased reliance on supplemented food during this time will encourage trumpeters to continue to expand throughout their range in a more natural setting, as well as to ensure that they are consuming the nutrients that their bodies require naturally.

The plan for the future is to only feed the swans in order to gather them together for tagging and banding. Tagging and banding is essential for a successful monitoring program and it expected to be done during times when swans are staging at Wye Marsh in late fall and early spring.

During the winter, Wye Marsh will continue to keep an air bubbler system running to allow open water for our resident swans and those swans preferring to endure local winter conditions rather than migrate south. Lake Ontario has provided a satisfactory wintering ground for many Ontario trumpeters for the last fifteen years.

Volunteering


There are a number of ways for wildlife enthusiasts to become involved in the Wye Marsh Trumpeter Swan Program. The public are encouraged to send in reports of trumpeter swan sightings. Sightings include all trumpeter swans, tagged and/or banded, untagged, adult and cygnets, and should include as much information as possible, such as location, total number of individuals, general comments about behaviour, appearance and health, etc.

Wye Marsh welcomes volunteers to the Swan Program to assist with occasional feeding and monitoring of wild trumpeters as well as monitoring and caring for the permanent resident swans, and care and recovery of any sick and injured trumpeter swans.

Adopt-a-Swan

Between 1997 and 2007, 51 swans have been “adopted” through the Wye Marsh Wildlife Centre. Donations are encouraged and may be used towards purchasing feed for tagging and banding purposes, medical bills, treatment for sick and injured swans, population and other research, educational materials, swan pond and berm rehabilitation, and more.

About Trumpeter Swans

Trumpeters are the largest waterfowl in North America.
Adult trumpeters can have a wingspan of up to 3 meters, and can weigh up to 30 lbs.
Baby swans are called cygnets, and are greyish in colour, with a pink bill and feet.
Trumpeters are not bothered by the cold. They have near 35,000 feathers and a 2 inch thick downy layer.
Sometimes the head and neck of a Trumpeter is stained a rust colour as a result of iron deposits in the sediment and water in which the swan feeds.
Trumpeters feed on aquatic vegetation and wild grasses in their natural environment – bread is not recommended as a treat.
Trumpeters live an average of 12 years in the wild, and can live for over 30 years in captivity.
Adapted from materials provided by Wye Marsh Wildlife Centre.



http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/11/071108205954.htm

Surfer dude stuns physicists with theory of everything

Telegraph.co.uk November 14, 2007
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2007/11/14/scisurf114.xml&CMP=ILC-mostviewedbox

Garrett Lisi, 39, has a doctorate but no university affiliation and spends most of the year surfing in Hawaii, where he has also been a hiking guide and bridge builder (when he slept in a jungle yurt).

In winter, he heads to the mountains near Lake Tahoe, Nevada, where he snowboards. "Being poor sucks," Lisi says. "It's hard to figure out the secrets of the universe when you're trying to figure out where you and your girlfriend are going to sleep next month."

Despite this unusual career path, his proposal is remarkable because, by the arcane standards of particle physics, it does not require highly complex mathematics.

Even better, it does not require more than one dimension of time and three of space, when some rival theories need ten or even more spatial dimensions and other bizarre concepts. And it may even be possible to test his theory, which predicts a host of new particles, perhaps even using the new Large Hadron Collider atom smasher that will go into action near Geneva next year.

Although the work of 39 year old Garrett Lisi still has a way to go to convince the establishment, let alone match the achievements of Albert Einstein, the two do have one thing in common: Einstein also began his great adventure in theoretical physics while outside the mainstream scientific establishment, working as a patent officer, though failed to achieve the Holy Grail, an overarching explanation to unite all the particles and forces of the cosmos.

Now Lisi, currently in Nevada, has come up with a proposal to do this. Lee Smolin at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, describes Lisi's work as "fabulous". "It is one of the most compelling unification models I've seen in many, many years," he says.

"Although he cultivates a bit of a surfer-guy image its clear he has put enormous effort and time into working the complexities of this structure out over several years," Prof Smolin tells The Telegraph.

"Some incredibly beautiful stuff falls out of Lisi's theory," adds David Ritz Finkelstein at the Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta. "This must be more than coincidence and he really is touching on something profound."

The new theory reported today in New Scientist has been laid out in an online paper entitled "An Exceptionally Simple Theory of Everything" by Lisi, who completed his doctorate in theoretical physics in 1999 at the University of California, San Diego.

He has high hopes that his new theory could provide what he says is a "radical new explanation" for the three decade old Standard Model, which weaves together three of the four fundamental forces of nature: the electromagnetic force; the strong force, which binds quarks together in atomic nuclei; and the weak force, which controls radioactive decay.

The reason for the excitement is that Lisi's model also takes account of gravity, a force that has only successfully been included by a rival and highly fashionable idea called string theory, one that proposes particles are made up of minute strings, which is highly complex and elegant but has lacked predictions by which to do experiments to see if it works.

But some are taking a cooler view. Prof Marcus du Sautoy, of Oxford University and author of Finding Moonshine, told the Telegraph: "The proposal in this paper looks a long shot and there seem to be a lot things still to fill in."

And a colleague Eric Weinstein in America added: "Lisi seems like a hell of a guy. I'd love to meet him. But my friend Lee Smolin is betting on a very very long shot."

Lisi's inspiration lies in the most elegant and intricate shape known to mathematics, called E8 - a complex, eight-dimensional mathematical pattern with 248 points first found in 1887, but only fully understood by mathematicians this year after workings, that, if written out in tiny print, would cover an area the size of Manhattan.

E8 encapsulates the symmetries of a geometric object that is 57-dimensional and is itself is 248-dimensional. Lisi says "I think our universe is this beautiful shape."

What makes E8 so exciting is that Nature also seems to have embedded it at the heart of many bits of physics. One interpretation of why we have such a quirky list of fundamental particles is because they all result from different facets of the strange symmetries of E8.

Lisi's breakthrough came when he noticed that some of the equations describing E8's structure matched his own. "My brain exploded with the implications and the beauty of the thing," he tells New Scientist. "I thought: 'Holy crap, that's it!'"

What Lisi had realised was that he could find a way to place the various elementary particles and forces on E8's 248 points. What remained was 20 gaps which he filled with notional particles, for example those that some physicists predict to be associated with gravity.

Physicists have long puzzled over why elementary particles appear to belong to families, but this arises naturally from the geometry of E8, he says. So far, all the interactions predicted by the complex geometrical relationships inside E8 match with observations in the real world. "How cool is that?" he says.

The crucial test of Lisi's work will come only when he has made testable predictions. Lisi is now calculating the masses that the 20 new particles should have, in the hope that they may be spotted when the Large Hadron Collider starts up.

"The theory is very young, and still in development," he told the Telegraph. "Right now, I'd assign a low (but not tiny) likelyhood to this prediction.

"For comparison, I think the chances are higher that LHC will see some of these particles than it is that the LHC will see superparticles, extra dimensions, or micro black holes as predicted by string theory. I hope to get more (and different) predictions, with more confidence, out of this E8 Theory over the next year, before the LHC comes online."

Dennis Kucinich by Gore Vidal

For the past two years I've been crisscrossing the United States speaking to crowds of people about our history and politics. At the same time, would-be Presidents of the greatest nation in the country, as silver-tongued Spiro Agnew used to say, have been crowding the trail, while TV journalists sadly shake their heads at how savage the politicos have become in their language. But then, it is the task of TV journalists to foment quarrels where often none properly exist.


As I pass through the stage door of one auditorium after another, I now hear the ominous name of Darth Vader, as edgy audiences shudder at the horrible direction our political discourse has taken. Ever eager as I am to shed light, I sometimes drop the name of the least publicized applicant to the creaky throne of the West: Dennis Kucinich. It takes a moment for the name to sink in. Then genuine applause begins. He is very much a favorite out there in the amber fields of grain, and I work him into the text. A member of the House of Representatives for five terms since 1997, although many of his legislative measures have been too useful and original for our brain-dead media to comprehend. I note his well-wrought articles proposing the impeachment of Vice President Cheney, testing the patriotic nerves of his fellow Democrats, but then the fact of his useful existence often causes distress to those who genuinely hate that democracy he is so eager to extend. "Don't waste your vote," they whine in unison--as if our votes are not quadrennially wasted on those marvelous occasions when they are actually counted and recorded.

Meanwhile, Kucinich is now at least visible in lineups of the Democratic candidates; he tends to be the most eloquent of the lot. So who is he? Something of a political prodigy: at 31 he was elected mayor of Cleveland. Once he had been installed, in 1978, the city's lordly banks wanted the new mayor to sell off the city's municipally owned electric system, Muny Light, to a private competitor in which (Oh, America!) the banks had a financial interest. When Mayor Kucinich refused to sell, the money lords took their revenge, as they are wont to do: they refused to roll over the city's debt, pushing the city into default. The ensuing crisis revealed the banks' criminal involvement with the private utility of their choice, CEI, which, had it acquired Muny Light, would have become a monopoly, as five of the six lordly banks had almost 1.8 million shares of CEI stock: this is Enronesque before the fact.

Mayor Kucinich was not re-elected, but his profile was clearly etched on the consciousness of his city; and in due course he returned to the Cleveland City Council before being elected to the Ohio State Senate and then the US Congress. Kucinich has also written a description of his Dickensian youth, growing up in Cleveland. He has firsthand knowledge of urban poverty in the world's richest nation. Born in 1946 into a Croatian Catholic family, by the time he was 17 he and his family had lived in twenty-one different places, much of which he describes in Dreiserian detail in a just-published memoir.

Kucinich is opposed to the death penalty as well as the USA Patriot Act. In 1998 and 2004 he was a US delegate to the United Nations convention on climate change. At home he has been active in Rust Belt affairs, working to preserve the ninety-year-old Cleveland steel industry, a task of the sort that will confront the next President should he or she have sufficient interest in these details.

I asked a dedicated liberal his impression of Kucinich; he wondered if Kucinich was too slight to lead a nation of truly fat folk. I pointed out that he has the same physical stature as James Madison, as well as a Madisonian commitment to our 1789 Constitution; he is also farsighted, as demonstrated by his resolute opposition to Bush's cries for ever more funding for the illegal wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. More to the point, in October 2002 he opposed the notion of a war then being debated. For those of us at home and in harm's way from disease, he co-wrote HR 676, a bill that would insure all of us within Medicare, just as if we were citizens of a truly civilized nation.

Solar Super Plane Prototype Ready for Takeoff in 2008

Popular Mechanics November 7, 2007

From concept to construction, the Solar Impulse has been hailed as a savior—the first major attempt to fly a plane without fuel, with eco-eyes set on a sun-powered trip around the globe. And for record-setting adventurer Bertrand Piccard, whom we profiled in a cover story on the aircraft two years ago, Monday’s unveiling of its prototype was a long time coming: He showed off a mock-up of the Solar Impulse at the 2005 Paris Airshow, but now the 201-ft. plane is set for a test flight next fall.

Coming from a long line of adventurers, Piccard made a pioneering, round-the-world flight in a balloon in 1999. His aircraft, a hybrid helium/hot-air balloon called the Breitling Orbiter, was developed by a consortium of engineers and companies, including the European Space Agency. Piccard applied that same model to the Solar Impuse, with some 150 designers across six countries trying to get it off the ground for next year, then a 2011 transatlantic flight and beyond.

“I’m not the type of man who accepts that there is no more adventure,” Piccard told us then. “Everything in this airplane needs to be 100 percent optimal—the energy chain, the aerodynamics, the fabrication of the structure, everything.”

The $94-million Solar Impulse prototype weighs in at just 3300 pounds thanks to its carbon-fiber body, but has to compensate for the still-developing world of solar cells by sprawling panels across its huge wingspan. The cockpit will only have room for one pilot, and it’s filled with avionic nstruments, computers and vacuum-packed food. Meanwhile, Bertrand and Co. have designed Solar Impulse to fly for 36 hours at a maximum altitude of 27,000 ft.

Under the hood, the plane draws solar power during the day and stores it in batteries to fly at night. But even the world’s best solar plane can only soar for seven or eight hours during the day—when the sun is high enough to provide sufficient energy. —Wayne Ma

Step It Up 2007 Turn off a lightbulb today...

Florida Today Newspaper Saturday, November 3, 2007 Local News - Environment

http://www.floridatoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2007711030329

Event asks politicians to step it up

Melbourne, Cocoa Beach join U.S. climate movement
BY MARIA SONNENBERG



Warning. Mark Bush, professor of biological sciences at Florida Tech, says climate change will be swift and drastic. "It's just about making smart decisions," Bush said. Today's National Day for Climate Action will include two events in Brevard. In Melbourne, shops will advertise what they're doing to save energy. In Cocoa Beach, Audubon of Florida will host a rally for conservation from 11:30 to noon. for FLORIDA TODAY

Change your lightbulb, and save a polar bear. Adjust your thermostat, and help a parrot.

Just little changes can make a big difference in the global environment, according to Step It Up, the New Hampshire-based group that organized the National Day of Climate Action, a series of grassroots events today.

The National Day for Climate Action builds on Step It Up's April rally that featured almost 1,500 events nationwide.

Today's activities are aimed at catching politicians' eyes.

"Enormous participation across the country should be a wake-up call to politicians," Step It Up co-coordinator May Boeve said.

The group is pushing for cuts in carbon emissions, known as greenhouse gases, with a pledge of an 80 percent reduction by 2050.

To symbolize the need for political leadership, some of the events are planned at historic sites, such as the Lincoln Memorial and along Paul Revere's route.

The day dovetails with PowerShift 2007, a major youth conference on global warming this weekend in Washington.

Joining the national movement are two events in Brevard.

In Melbourne, Bobbie Richardson encouraged local shops to reduce energy use and to advertise their action with a sign.

In Cocoa Beach, Audubon of Florida hosts a rally for conservation from 11:30 to noon today at 1550 N. Atlantic Ave.

Time is of the essence, scientists say. NASA's James Hansen said the world has less than a decade to transform its attitude, or it will face a wilting planet.

It may be too late to prevent global warming, but Step It Up's suggestions may be enough to stop the worst.

"Climate change is the biggest issue we face," said Mark Bush, professor of biological sciences at Florida Tech.

When change does arrive, it will be swift and drastic, he said.

"We've been in this period of a very stable climate, but you trip the trigger, and things can change in three to 10 years," Bush said.

While Florida can rely on the ocean as a buffer, other states, such as drought-stricken Georgia, may not be so lucky.

"We're going into unknown territory," Bush said.

Green technology, such as hybrid automobiles, is attracting consumer interest, but more support is needed if individuals really want to bring about change, he said.

"It's just about making smart decisions," Bush said. "People don't like to make tough choices, but if oil goes over $100 a gallon, they will be demanding cars that average 50 miles to the gallon. When people put their minds to it, they can influence history."

Fuel Cells Gearing Up To Power Auto Industry

ENERGY TECH - ENERGY DAILY

Fuel Cells Gearing Up To Power Auto Industry

The key to making a fuel cell work is a catalyst, which facilitates the reaction of hydrogen and oxygen. The most common, but expensive, catalyst is platinum. Currently, the amount of platinum catalyst required per kilowatt to power a fuel cell engine is about 0.5 to 0.8 grams, or .018 to .028 ounces. At a cost of about $1,500 per ounce, the platinum catalyst alone would cost between $2,300 to $3,700 to operate a small, 100-kilowatt two- or four-door vehicle - a significant cost given that an entire 100-kilowatt gasoline combustion engine costs about $3,000. To make the transition to fuel cell-powered vehicles possible, the automobile industry wants something better and cheaper.
by Staff Writers
Houston TX (SPX) Oct 31, 2007
The average price for all types of gasoline is holding steady around $2.95 per gallon nationwide, but the pain at the pump might be short-lived as research from the University of Houston may eliminate one of the biggest hurdles to the wide-scale production of fuel cell-powered vehicles.
Peter Strasser, an assistant professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering, led the research team in discovering a method to make a fuel cell more efficient and less expensive. The initiative is one of four ongoing fuel cell projects in development at the Cullen College of Engineering at UH.

A fuel cell converts chemically stored energy directly into electricity and is already two to three times more efficient in converting fuel to power than the internal combustion engine usually found in automobiles.

"A fuel cell is a power generation device that converts energy into electricity with very high efficiencies without combustion, flame, noise or vibration," Strasser said. "If a fuel cell is run on hydrogen and air, as planned for automotive fuel cells, hydrogen and oxygen molecules combine to provide electricity with water as the only byproduct."

The key to making a fuel cell work is a catalyst, which facilitates the reaction of hydrogen and oxygen. The most common, but expensive, catalyst is platinum. Currently, the amount of platinum catalyst required per kilowatt to power a fuel cell engine is about 0.5 to 0.8 grams, or .018 to .028 ounces. At a cost of about $1,500 per ounce, the platinum catalyst alone would cost between $2,300 to $3,700 to operate a small, 100-kilowatt two- or four-door vehicle - a significant cost given that an entire 100-kilowatt gasoline combustion engine costs about $3,000. To make the transition to fuel cell-powered vehicles possible, the automobile industry wants something better and cheaper.

"The automobile companies have been asking for a platinum-based catalyst that is four times more efficient, and, therefore, four times cheaper, than what is currently available," Strasser said. "That's the magic number."

Strasser and his team, which includes Ratndeep Srivastava, a graduate student, Prasanna Mani, a postdoctoral researcher, and Nathan Hahn, a 2007 UH graduate, have met and, seemingly, exceeded this "magic number." The team created a catalyst that uses less platinum, making it at least four times - and up to six times - more efficient and cheaper than existing catalysts at comparable power levels.

"We have found a low platinum alloy that we pre-treat in a special way to make it very active for the reaction of oxygen to water on the surface of our catalyst," Strasser said. "A more active catalyst means that we get more electricity, or energy, for the amount of platinum used and the time it's used for. With a material four to six times more efficient, the cost of the catalyst has reached an important target set by industrial fuel cell developers and the U.S. Department of Energy."

Although more testing of how the durability of this new catalyst compares to pure platinum is necessary, the preliminary results look promising.

"The initial results show that durability is improved over pure platinum, but only longer-term testing can tell," Strasser said. Long-term results may take some time, but industry expert Hubert Gasteiger, a leading scientist in fuel research with Aeta S.p.A. in Italy, is already excited.

"The automotive cost targets, which were developed several years ago, require that the activity of the available platinum catalysts would need to be increased by a factor of four to six," Gasteiger said. "The novel catalyst concept developed by Professor Strasser's group has been demonstrated to provide an enhancement factor of greater than four, and, thereby, are very promising materials to achieve the platinum metals cost targets of typical hydrogen-oxygen automotive fuel cells. This is a very exciting and new development, even though more work is required to assure that the durability of these novel catalysts is equally superior to the current carbon-supported platinum catalysts."

Strasser's preliminary results and research have been published in the October 2007 issues of Angewandte Chemie International Edition and Journal of the American Chemical Society.

Sponsored by $1.5 million in grants from the U.S. Department of Energy, National Science Foundation, major automotive fuel cell developers and NASA through the Houston Advanced Research Center, Strasser hopes companies will begin introducing fuel cell-powered cars within the next decade.