Wine lakes and Nanosoccer

Physics Org

Texas Begins Desalinating Sea Water - On a one-acre site alongside a string of shrimp boats docked on the Brownsville ship channel stands a $2.2 million assembly of pipes, sheds, and humming machinery - Texas' entree into global efforts to make sea water suitable to drink. The plant is a pilot project for the state's $150 million, full-scale sea water desalination plant slated for construction in 2010.

Bright future for nanowire light source - A bio-friendly nano-sized light source capable of emitting coherent light across the visible spectrum, has been invented by a team of researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and the University of California at Berkeley. Among the many potential applications of this nano-sized light source, once the technology is refined, are single cell endoscopy and other forms of subwavelength bio-imaging, integrated circuitry for nanophotonic technology, and new advanced methods of cyber cryptography.

New, invisible nano-fibers conduct electricity, repel dirt - Tiny plastic fibers could be the key to some diverse technologies in the future -- including self-cleaning surfaces, transparent electronics, and biomedical tools that manipulate strands of DNA. In the June issue of the journal Nature Nanotechnology, Ohio State University researchers describe how they created surfaces that, seen with the eye, look as flat and transparent as a sheet of glass. But seen up close, the surfaces are actually carpeted with tiny fibers.

Nanosoccer debuts at RoboCup 2007 - Imagine a mechanical Pelé or David Beckham six times smaller than an amoeba playing with a “soccer ball” no wider than a human hair on a field that can fit on a grain of rice. Purely science fiction? Not anymore. The U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) organizes the first nanoscale soccer games at the 2007 RoboCup in Atlanta, Ga., on July 7-8, 2007. The glass microchip on the left measures 3 centimeters across - more than the diameter of a quarter on the right - and is divided into sixteen 2.5 millimeter by 2.5 millimeter nanosoccer playing fields.

SPACE.com

Flight Log: The First Private Expedition to the Moon - You don't have to pack your bags quite yet, but passenger travel to the Moon is on the flight manifest of a space tourist company. The price per seat will slap your wallet or purse for a swift $100 million - but you'll have to get in line as the first voyage is already booked. Space Adventures, headquartered in Vienna, Virginia, is in negotiations with the customers who will fly the first private expedition to circumnavigate the Moon.

Oceans from Space - Water. It's essential for life as best we know it. Almost three-fourths of the Earth is covered with water. We live on the pale blue dot, and our lives depend fundamentally on water. Yet, just after Earth formed about 4.5 billion years ago, the surface was mostly dry. "So, where did the water come from?" (Bonus science experiment: how to make your own comet)

Transmaterial

Backlight Images - Backlight Images are three-dimensional solid-surface topographies created from digital images. Developed and manufactured by the R. D. Wing Company, the Backlight Image process transforms user-provided images into reliefs within the surface of 1/4-inch-thick, translucent DuPont Corian. The images are first converted to grayscale mode with 256 shades, and each shade effectively becomes a different height of contour.

news@nature.com

Europe burns its wine lake - The European Commission is putting out to tender the opportunity to turn its excess wine into bioethanol. But if the commission gets its way, this will be the last time the European Union subsidizes such a move. The European Union currently spends 1.3 billion euros (US$1.75 billion) a year supporting the wine industry. Up to 7% of this, or 90 million euros, goes towards 'crisis distillation', where as much as 45 million litres of EU wine, often of undrinkably poor quality, is bought and distilled into ethanol for use as fuel.

Teams trail genes for human 'stemness' - A Japanese team led by the Kyoto University's Shinya Yamanaka first unveiled the technique last year (Cell 126, 663–676; 2006), using retroviruses to insert genes into the DNA of mouse fibroblasts. To the field's surprise—and initial skepticism—the team found that only four genes can, in combination, trigger a series of events that shunts cells back into an embryonic state, from which they are able to differentiate into any cell type in the body—an ability dubbed 'pluripotency'. Yamanaka dubbed the cells "induced pluripotent stem" (iPS) cells. But even elsewhere in the world, researchers are scrambling to improve upon the technique, which skirts the controversial use of human eggs and embryos.

Urine grows better fish food - Human urine could nourish the plankton used as food on fish farms. Plankton grown in diluted urine do better than those given other nitrogen-rich materials, ecological engineers have found.

Anti-fat pills and amphibious cars

New Scientist - Energy and Fuels

Roll up for better hydrogen fuel storage -The thorny problem of how to store hydrogen fuel safely for future vehicles and portable gadgets could be solved by simply storing it in nanoscopic scrolls of carbon. Scientists in Greece say they have found a way to make so-called "carbon nanoscrolls" store more hydrogen than any other material.

Giant microwave turns plastic back to oil - A US company is taking plastics recycling to another level – turning them back into the oil they were made from, and gas. All that is needed, claims Global Resource Corporation (GRC), is a finely tuned microwave and – hey presto! – a mix of materials that were made from oil can be reduced back to oil and combustible gas (and a few leftovers).

ABC News: Technology

The Clash Between Religion and Science -Here's one reason why the war between science and religion cannot be resolved. Most scientists do not believe in God. That's one of the findings in a huge study of leading scientists at the 21 top-rated research universities in the United States.

Like Liposuction, Without the Surgery - Scientists at Georgetown University Medical Center have found a natural chemical in mice that seems to control the formation of fat. While the scientists have many more years of work ahead of them, they said the same chemicals may very well work in humans.

Taser, IRobot Team Up to Arm Robots - RoboCops and robot soldiers got a little closer to reality Thursday as a maker of floor-cleaning automatons teamed up with a stun-gun manufacturer to arm track-wheeled 'bots for police and the Pentagon.

Hope This Makes You Mad - Researchers at the University of California, Santa Barbara, have found that in some cases, a little anger can actually sharpen our ability to analyze data carefully and make the right decisions.

Amphibious Vehicles: Elite's Ultimate Mode of Transport - The Aquada, a combination sports car and speedboat, will debut in the United States in the early part of 2009 to the tune of $85,000. Currently, it sells overseas for more than $200,000 since entering the U.K. market in 2003.

A Face Worth a Thousand Angry Words - In the last decade tattooing, once the realm of sailors and bikers, has become much more mainstream in the United States. It's not at all unusual to walk down the street and see the occasional butterfly on an ankle, a koi on the lower back or a Celtic band around a bicep. But tattoo experts say it's a different kind of person who wants his or her entire face inked.