Next Big Future

25 kilogram or lighter detectors can use millisecond pulsars for universal positioning system accurate today to ±5 km in the solar system and beyond and soon to meters

noreply@blogger.com (brian wang) — Fri, 24 May 2013 14:23:24 PDT

Millimeter pulsars can be used for universal position system accurate today to ±5 km in the solar system and beyond and soon to meters. (arxiv 22 pages) By comparing pulse arrival times measured on-board a spacecraft with predicted pulse arrivals at a reference location, the spacecraft position can be determined autonomously and with high accuracy everywhere in the solar system and beyond. The unique properties of pulsars make clear already today that such a navigation system will have its application in future astronautics. In this paper we describe the basic principle of spacecraft navigation using pulsars and report on the current development status of this novel technology.

Autonomous spacecraft navigating with pulsars is feasible when using either phased-array radio antennas of at least 150 square meter antenna area or compact light-weighted X-ray telescopes and detectors, which are currently being developed for the next generation of X-ray observatories. Using the X-ray signals from millisecond pulsars we estimated that navigation would be possible with an accuracy of ±5 km in the solar system and beyond. The error is dominated by the inaccuracy of the pulse profiles templates that were used for the pulse peak fittings and pulse-TOA measurements. As pulse profiles templates are known with much higher accuracy in the radio band, it is possible to increase the accuracy of pulsar navigation down to the meter scale< by using radio signals from pulsars for navigation.

Pulsar-based navigation systems can operate autonomously. This is one of their most important advantages, and is interesting also for current space technologies; e.g., as augmentation of existing GPS/Galileo satellites. Future applications of this autonomous navigation technique might be on planetary exploration missions and on manned missions to Mars or beyond.

Currently positioning relies on Earth-based tracking stations to work out a spacecraft’s distance using radio waves, a process that is accurate to within a meter or so. That’s fine for the radial distance, but tracking a spacecraft’s angular position is much harder because of the limited angular resolution of radio antennas. The current technology produces an uncertainty of about four kilometers per astronomical unit of distance between Earth and the spacecraft. So for a spacecraft at the distance of Pluto, that’s an uncertainty of 200 kilometers and at the distance of Voyager 1, the uncertainty is 500 kilometers.

Nuclear Fusion Summary - Prospects for breakthrough commercial reactors 2018-2025

noreply@blogger.com (brian wang) — Fri, 24 May 2013 16:08:18 PDT

Nuclear fusion is one of the main topics at Nextbigfuture. I have summarized the state of nuclear fusion research before. A notable summary was made three years ago in mid-2010. I believed at the time that there could be multiple successful nuclear fusion project vying for commercial markets by 2018. Progress appears to be going a bit more slowly than previously hoped, but there are several possible projects (General Fusion, John Slough small space propulsion nuclear fusion system, Lawrenceville Plasma Physics - if they work out metal contamination and other issues and scale power) that could demonstrate net energy gain in the next couple of years.

Commercialization Date targets

General Fusion 2020 (targeting 4 cents per kwh)

Helion Energy 2022 (about 5 cents per kwh and able to burn nuclear fission waste)

Lockheed Compact Fusion 2023

Tri-Alpha Energy (previously talked about 2015-2020, but now likely 2020-2025)

Lawrenceville Plasma Physics - 4 years commercial after net energy gain proved. Say two years to prove net energy gain. Then 2019-2021 for a commercial reactor (2021 if we allow for 2 years of slippage). Could lower energy costs by ten times.

EMC2 Fusion (?? No information for the last few years. US Navy is funding the work at a few million dollars per year)

Muon Fusion - Research in Japan and at Star Scientific in Australia

There will be more than one economic and technological winner. Once we figure nuclear fusion there will be multiple nuclear fusion reactors. It will be like engines - steam engines, gasoline engines, diesel engines, jet engines. There will be multiple makers of multiple types of nuclear fusion reactors. There will be many applications energy production, space propulsion, space launch, transmutation, weapons and more. We will be achieving greater capabilities with magnets (100+ tesla superconducting magnets), lasers (high repetition and high power), and materials. We will also have more knowledge of the physics. What had been a long hard slog will become easy and there will be a lot more money for research around a massive industry.

The cleaner burning aspect of most nuclear fusion approaches versus nuclear fission is not that interesting to me. It is good but nuclear fission waste cycle could be completely closed with deep burn nuclear fission reactors that use all of the uranium and plutonium. In China it is straight up engineering questions. So a transition to moderately deeper burn pebble bed from 2020-2035 (starts 2015 but not a major part until 2020) and then a shift to breeders 2030-2050+.

What matters are developments which could radically alter the economy of the world and the future of humanity. The leading smaller nuclear fusion projects hold out the potential of radically lowering the cost of energy and increasing the amount of energy. Nuclear fusion can enable an expansion of the energy used by civilization by over a billion times from 20 Terawatts to 20 Zettawatts. Nuclear fusion also enables space propulsion at significant fractions of the speed of light (1 to 20% of lightspeed.) Earth to orbit launch with nuclear fusion spaceplanes or reusable rockets and trivial access to anywhere in the solar system.

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10 Tesla superconductors could enable Tokamak fusion to actually be affordable and workable in reasonable time

noreply@blogger.com (brian wang) — Fri, 24 May 2013 06:13:22 PDT

A new generation of 10 tesla uperconductors could make Tokamak style nuclear fusion reactors work. It could make them affordable, smaller, maintainable and remove the plasma problems. The development time could be greatly reduced from 50 years to 10 to 20 years. A new design would also switch to FLIBE molten salt for lower costs.

The overnight cost of a ﬁssion power plant is ~ $4/W ($2/W for China).
• First of kind fusion plants at least $10-20/W
• Which implies that developing fusion reactors at ~GWe scale requires 10-20 G$ “per try” e.g. ITER
• Chance of fusion development signiﬁcantly improved if net thermal/electrical power produced at ~5-10 x smaller i.e. ~ 500 MW thermal

It would be good to have a more reasonable Tokamak fusion option.

I still like John Slough's fusion reactor designs more. He could have net gain this year or next year. It looks even cheaper and faster to develop.
The Lawrenceville Plasma Physics dense plasma focus fusion also seems to have chance to lower energy costs by ten times while Tokomaks are trying to not be two to ten times more expensive.
General fusion also seems more promising.

Also, any nuclear fusion option needs to be better than improved nuclear fission.
Molten salt nuclear fission looks to greatly reduce the waste and have improved costs.

Canadian David LeBlanc is developing the Integral Molten Salt Reactor, or IMSR. The goal is to commercialize the Terrestrial reactor by 2021. It should have initial costs of $3.5/W and could have costs that are $1/W.

DARPA's lightweight soft exoskeleton the Warrior Web is revealed

noreply@blogger.com (brian wang) — Thu, 23 May 2013 22:16:45 PDT

DARPA has released a video of a soldier carrying a 61-pound load while walking in a prototype DARPA Warrior Web system during an independent evaluation by the U.S. Army.

It is less like the hard exoskeleton of Iron man and more like the supersuit of the Pixar Incredibles.

Warrior Web seeks to create a soft, lightweight under-suit that would help reduce injuries and fatigue common for Soldiers, who often carry 100-pound loads for extended periods over rough terrain. DARPA envisions Warrior Web augmenting the work of Soldiers’ own muscles to significantly boost endurance, carrying capacity and overall warfighter effectiveness–all while using no more than 100 Watts of power.

The U.S. Army Research Laboratory Human Research and Engineering Directorate (ARL HRED) is nearing completion of a five-month series of tests to evaluate multiple Warrior Web prototype devices. The testing evaluates how each prototype incorporates different technologies and approaches to reduce forces on the body, decrease fatigue, stabilize joints and help Soldiers to maintain a natural gait under a heavy load. The testing uses a multi-camera motion-capture system to determine any changes in gait or balance, a cardio-pulmonary exercise testing device to measure oxygen consumption and a variety of sensors to collect force, acceleration and muscle activity data.

The suit will actively assist muscle movement using tiny actuators in certain joints.

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Saving lives and weaponization with 3D printing and other technology

noreply@blogger.com (brian wang) — Thu, 23 May 2013 11:10:18 PDT

3D bioprinters were used to make a life saving splint to help a baby breath.

The image-based design and 3D biomaterial printing process can be adapted to build and reconstruct a number of tissue structures. Green and Hollister have already utilized the process to build and test patient specific ear and nose structures in pre-clinical models. In addition, the method has been used by Hollister with collaborators to rebuild bone structures (spine, craniofacial and long bone) in pre-clinical models.

3D printing is predicted to enable a new industrial revolution. The disruption in areas where 3D printing already works well – including furniture, cutlery, machine tools, car components, toys, garden equipment and so on – will be intense. Some retailers will be disintermediated and go bust, just as music stores have been destroyed by Apple’s iTunes.

Airbus has long term projects to print whole wings and other large components.

3D printers have been used to print working guns and DARPA weapons and vehicles using additive manufacturing.

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Doctors use 3D bioprinter to create a splint for baby's blocked throat

noreply@blogger.com (brian wang) — Thu, 23 May 2013 10:51:02 PDT

The Youngstown, Ohio, baby turned blue again and again as his little airways collapsed and kept air from reaching his lungs. But doctors used a 3-D bioprinter to custom-make a splint that is holding his airway open and helping him breathe.

Now 19-month-old Kaiba Gionfriddo is “into everything”, says his mother, April Gionfriddo.

"Quite a few doctors said he had a good chance of not leaving the hospital alive," she adds.

Kaiba was born with a rare condition called tracheobronchomalacia. This deformity affects about one in 2,200 babies and causes the airways to be weak and prone to collapse. In tiny babies, it can look like asthma and it can take a while to diagnose.

Doctors at the University of Michigan bioprinted this splint, custom designed for Kaiba Giofriddo's trachea. It fits around the outside and supports the windpipe.

Green and Hollister were able to make the custom-designed, custom-fabricated device using high-resolution imaging and computer-aided design. The device was created directly from a CT scan of Kaiba's trachea/bronchus, integrating an image-based computer model with laser-based 3D printing to produce the splint. The image-based design and 3D biomaterial printing process can be adapted to build and reconstruct a number of tissue structures. Green and Hollister have already utilized the process to build and test patient specific ear and nose structures in pre-clinical models. In addition, the method has been used by Hollister with collaborators to rebuild bone structures (spine, craniofacial and long bone) in pre-clinical models.

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General Fusion on track for Demonstration of Net Gain Equivalent Plasma Compression this year

noreply@blogger.com (brian wang) — Thu, 23 May 2013 07:51:05 PDT

There is a 19 page presentation from 2012 that updates the progress of General Fusion

General Fusion is trying to make affordable fusion power a reality.
• Founded in 2002, based in Vancouver, Canada
• Plan to demonstrate proof of physics DD equivalent “net gain” in 2013
• Plan to demonstrate the first fusion system capable of “net gain” 3 years after proof
• Validated by leading experts in fusion and industrial engineering
• Industrial and institutional partners
• $42.5M in venture capital, $6.3M in government support

General Fusion intends to build a three-meter-diameter steel sphere filled with spinning molten lead and lithium. Super-heated plasma would be injected into the vortex and then the outside of the sphere would be hit with 200 computer-synchronized pistons travelling 100 meters per second (200 mph) The resulting shock waves would compress the plasma and spark a fusion reaction for a few microseconds.

Carnival of Space 302

noreply@blogger.com (brian wang) — Thu, 23 May 2013 00:23:59 PDT

The Carnival of Space 302 is up at Cheap Astronomy

Dr. Paul Spudis has written Earth-Moon: A Watery “Double-Planet” on his Once and Future Moon weblog.

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Tesla Repays $451 million Government loan ten years early and will get about $188 million this year selling Zero Emission credits

noreply@blogger.com (brian wang) — Wed, 22 May 2013 23:14:45 PDT

Tesla Motors announced that it has paid off the entire loan awarded to the company by the Department of Energy in 2010. In addition to payments made in 2012 and Q1 2013, today’s wire of almost half a billion dollars ($451.8M) repays the full loan facility with interest. Following this payment, Tesla will be the only American car company to have fully repaid the government for a Dept of Energy loan.

The loan payment was made today using a portion of the approximately $1 billion in funds raised in last week’s concurrent offerings of common stock and convertible senior notes. Elon Musk, Tesla’s Chief Executive Officer and cofounder, purchased $100 million of common equity, the least secure portion of the offering.

In the first quarter of 2013, Tesla sold nearly $68 million of the zero-emission credits to other automakers. That represented 12% of its overall revenue. Other automakers are buying the zero emissions credits are concerned they won't able to meet tough new environmental regulations requiring that more than 15% of sales in 11 states be zero-emissions vehicles by 2025. Adam Jonas, auto analyst with Morgan Stanley, who estimates that the credits will come to $188 million this year.

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Seager equation based on detected exoplanets alternative to Drake Equation for alien life

noreply@blogger.com (brian wang) — Wed, 22 May 2013 16:56:19 PDT

The Kepler space telescope has found more than 130 worlds and detected 3000 or so more possibles.

Sara Seager at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology reckons the Drake equation is ripe for a revamp. Her version narrows a few of the original terms to account for our new best bets of finding life, based in part on what Kepler has revealed. If the original Drake equation was a hatchet, the new Seager equation is a scalpel.

Red dwarfs are the most common stars in our galaxy: projections based on Kepler data suggest that the nearest habitable Earth-sized world could orbit a red dwarf as close as 6.5 light years away.

Even better, it will be easier to probe these planets for gases associated with life, because tighter orbits mean that more of the star's light will filter through a planet's atmosphere on the way to us, picking up telltale clues to its composition. Seager's goal is to find the fraction of habitable Earth-sized worlds in our galactic neighbourhood with detectable atmospheric biosignatures – in other words, inhabited worlds. She has already put the number of inhabited planets that the James Webb space telescope might see at less than 10.

"Just like with the Drake equation, some of the terms are always speculative," Seager says.

Sara Seager has a 48 page ebook about "Is There Life Out There ? The Search for Habitable Exoplanets

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New Technique May Open Up an Era of Atomic-scale Semiconductor Devices with wafer scale one atom thick layers

noreply@blogger.com (brian wang) — Wed, 22 May 2013 16:46:36 PDT

Researchers at North Carolina State University have developed a new technique for creating high-quality semiconductor thin films at the atomic scale – meaning the films are only one atom thick. The technique can be used to create these thin films on a large scale, sufficient to coat wafers that are two inches wide, or larger.

“This could be used to scale current semiconductor technologies down to the atomic scale – lasers, light-emitting diodes (LEDs), computer chips, anything,” says Dr. Linyou Cao, an assistant professor of materials science and engineering at NC State and senior author of a paper on the work. “People have been talking about this concept for a long time, but it wasn’t possible. With this discovery, I think it’s possible.”

The researchers worked with molybdenum sulfide (MoS2), an inexpensive semiconductor material with electronic and optical properties similar to materials already used in the semiconductor industry. However, MoS2 is different from other semiconductor materials because it can be “grown” in layers only one atom thick without compromising its properties.

In the new technique, researchers place sulfur and molybdenum chloride powders in a furnace and gradually raise the temperature to 850 degrees Celsius, which vaporizes the powder. The two substances react at high temperatures to form MoS2. While still under high temperatures, the vapor is then deposited in a thin layer onto the substrate.

Nature Scientific Reports- Controlled Scalable Synthesis of Uniform, High-Quality Monolayer and Few-layer MoS2 Films

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Molecular Trigger for Alzheimer's Disease Identified

noreply@blogger.com (brian wang) — Wed, 22 May 2013 16:42:22 PDT

Researchers have pinpointed a catalytic trigger for the onset of Alzheimer’s disease – when the fundamental structure of a protein molecule changes to cause a chain reaction that leads to the death of neurons in the brain.

For the first time, scientists at Cambridge’s Department of Chemistry have been able to map in detail the pathway that generates “aberrant” forms of proteins which are at the root of neurodegenerative conditions such as Alzheimer’s.

They believe the breakthrough is a vital step closer to increased capabilities for earlier diagnosis of neurological disorders such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, and opens up possibilities for a new generation of targeted drugs, as scientists say they have uncovered the earliest stages of the development of Alzheimer’s that drugs could possibly target.

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Single cell genomics breakthrough - RNA in single cells sequenced and up to 1000-fold variability in expression levels found

noreply@blogger.com (brian wang) — Wed, 22 May 2013 15:28:37 PDT

A team of scientists at the Klarman Cell Observatory at the Broad Institute recently completed an effort to read, or sequence, all the RNA — the “transcriptome” — in individual immune cells. Whereas DNA in a cell’s genome represents its blueprint for making the building blocks of cells, RNA is more like the cell’s contractor, turning that blueprint into proteins. By sequencing RNA in single cells, scientists can obtain a picture of what proteins each cell is actively making and in what amounts.

The Broad researchers sought to adapt a recently developed technique for single-cell RNA sequencing, known as SMART-Seq, and apply it to a model of immune cell response well-studied by Regev, Broad senior associate member Nir Hacohen, and their fellow researchers. In this model, immune cells known as bone-marrow derived dendritic cells (BMDCs) are exposed to a bacterial cell component that causes the cells to mount an immune response.

Working with scientists in the Broad’s Genomics Platform, notably research scientists Joshua Levin and Xian Adiconis, the team established the SMART-Seq method for use in their model system, using it to gather RNA sequence data from 18 BMDCs in this pilot phase.

The team first analyzed the data for differences in expression, or activity, of various genes among the cells, seen as alterations in RNA abundance. Although they were working with a single cell type — BDMCs — they did expect to see some variation in gene expression as cells activated various pathways during their immune response. But the team discovered that some genes varied greatly, with 1000-fold differences in the expression levels between cells. “We went after a narrowly defined cell type that has a specific function that we think of as being very uniform,” said Shalek. “What we saw was striking — a tremendous variability that wasn’t expected.”

Nature - Single-cell transcriptomics reveals bimodality in expression and splicing in immune cells

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China Urbanization from now to 2050 needs more skyscrapers to leave land for agriculture

noreply@blogger.com (brian wang) — Wed, 22 May 2013 12:47:31 PDT

Goldman Sachs believes the ‘new’ China urbanization will aim for a shift in focus, in which incremental benefits will be more likely to accrue to social safety nets / consumption areas, while FAI ( fixed asset investment) will become more selective and targeted. In this report, we address several misconceptions about the future for urbanization.

A more concrete urbanization blueprint unveiled in the coming months. Premier Li Keqiang has identified top policy issues as geographic strategy, land reform, hukou reform, natural resource support, and environmental issues. Funding source is also a big challenge, in our [Goldman] view.

Healthcare and Insurance will be the big winning sectors with the new China urbanization.

Limitations in land and environment favor Broad Group Skyscrapers to continue old model urbanization

The Goldman study cites land scarcity and environmental and road limitations. Goldman expects more growth in townships to get around those problems. Nextbigfuture believes that Broad Group skyscrapers would enable more growth in first tier, second tier and third tier cities.

Land scarcity: Land is a scarce resource in China and the government has already been struggling to maintain its minimum commitment of 1.8bn mu of arable agricultural land. Simply building many more cities may not be feasible.

Environmental and other limitations : Some of China’s largest and most popular cities (such as Beijing) are facing clear bottlenecks not resolvable by simply more investment. For example, more roads and subways could possibly alleviate traffic congestion. However, other issues such as nature degradation, pollution, etc. are difficult to overcome in a short period of time, limiting the capacity for such cities to take in a faster pace of population inflow

Broad Group has gotten permission to proceed with the construction of the 220 story Sky City skyscraper starting in June, 2013 in Changsha.

The Broad Group Vision is to us the skyscrapers to make a cleaner better city for China.

They have very good air purification systems for reducing indoor air pollution by over 99%.
The factory built system would reduce construction dust air pollution.

They envision clean offices, homes (up to 3000 square feet), hospitals, schools, exercise facilities, pools, restaurants and grocery stores.

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Clonetegration is a fast One-step genetic engineering technology

noreply@blogger.com (brian wang) — Wed, 22 May 2013 11:34:59 PDT

A new, streamlined approach to genetic engineering drastically reduces the time and effort needed to insert new genes into bacteria, the workhorses of biotechnology. The method paves the way for more rapid development of designer microbes for drug development, environmental cleanup and other activities.

current genetic engineering methods are time-consuming and involve many steps. The approaches have other limitations as well. To address those drawbacks, the researchers sought to develop a new, one-step genetic engineering technology, which they named “clonetegration,” a reference to clones or copies of genes or DNA fragments.

They describe development and successful laboratory tests of clonetegration in E. coli and Salmonella typhimurium bacteria, which are used in biotechnology. The method is quick, efficient and easy to do and can integrate multiple genes at the same time. They predict that clonetegration “will become a valuable technique facilitating genetic engineering with difficult-to-clone sequences and rapid construction of synthetic biological systems.”

ACS Synthetic Biology - One-Step Cloning and Chromosomal Integration of DNA

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EU fears being left behind with global shale oil and gas revolution but also fears hydrofracking and nuclear energy

noreply@blogger.com (brian wang) — Wed, 22 May 2013 12:00:01 PDT

EU leaders, desperate to give economic growth a boost, are talking about targeting energy policy. They are concerned a US-led revolution in shale oil and gas development will reshape the global economy and leave Europe far behind.

* energy costs remain high in the EU
* Europe paid one billion euros a day for its energy imports in 2012
* Europe risks becoming the only continent to depend on imported energy
* In 2035, Europe could still depend on imports for more than 80 percent of their energy needs
* one trillion euros in energy investment is needed by 2020
* Britain, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Spain favor developing shale energy but others, and France in particular, are opposed, citing the environmental issues involved.
* The public in many countries fear hydrofracking
* public fears of nuclear energy is also causing Germany and other countries to make costly shifts from nuclear energy

Which european fears will win ?
Fears of being left behind economically ?
Fears of high unemployment ?
Fears of hydrofracking ?
Fears of nuclear energy ?
Environmental fears ?

Cheap natural gas is cheap energy and cheap chemical feedstock for Industrial processes

Motivated by a rapid-fire increase in natural gas production in the United States, business leaders and some politicians in Germany say they need to act quickly to prevent the country’s industrial core from departing for places where energy costs just a fraction of the price. They worry that the country’s ambitious environmental goals are far less meaningful if the economy withers in achieving them.

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New asthma drug, duplimab, cuts attacks by 87% and treats underlying cause olf asthma

noreply@blogger.com (brian wang) — Wed, 22 May 2013 10:32:28 PDT

A new type of asthma drug (duplimab) meant to attack the underlying causes of the respiratory disease slashed episodes by 87 percent in a mid-stage trial, making it a potential game changer for patients with moderate to severe disease, researchers said on Tuesday.

"Overall, these are the most exciting data we've seen in asthma in 20 years," said Dr. Sally Wenzel, lead investigator for the 104-patient study of dupilumab, an injectable treatment being developed by Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc and French drugmaker Sanofi.

The drug also met all its secondary goals, such as improving symptoms and lung function and reducing the need for standard drugs called beta agonists.
"We have been treating asthma with sort of Band-Aid therapies that didn't get at the underlying causes," Wenzel said in an interview, adding that dupilumab could be an important step in going to the root of the problem.

"By end of the trial, after 12 weeks, 44 percent of those in the placebo group had exacerbations, compared with 5 percent of those on dupilumab," Wenzel said. That represented an 87 percent reduction in exacerbations, which was highly statistically significant.

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Single atom electron spin qubit building block for scalable quantum computer compatible with silicon computer chips

noreply@blogger.com (brian wang) — Wed, 22 May 2013 10:16:46 PDT

An Australian team unveils the fundamental building block of a scalable quantum computer that could be embedded in today’s silicon chips.

Kane Quantum Computer Proposal - Phosphorus atoms embedded in silicon would be the ideal way to store and manipulate quantum information.Phosphorus atom could store a single qubit for long periods of time in the way it spins. A magnetic field could easily address this qubit using well-known techniques from nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy. That would allow single-qubit manipulations but not two-qubit operations, because nuclear spins do not interact significantly of each other.

For that, he suggested transferring the spin to an electron orbiting the phosphorus atom, which would interact much more easily with an electron orbiting a nearby phosphorus atom. Two-qubit operations would then be possible by manipulating the two electrons with electric fields.

Building a Kane quantum computer has become almost an obsession in Australia, where some 100 researchers have been working on the problem for over a decade.

Breakthroughs Achieved
* Able to implant phosphorus atoms at precise locations in silicon using a scanning tunnelling microscope.
* able to address the nuclear spins of these phosphorus atoms using powerful magnetic fields.
* Now able address the spin of an individual electron orbiting a phosphorus atom and to read out its value.

The end result is a device that can store and manipulate a qubit and has the potential to perform two-qubit logic operations with atoms nearby; in other words the fundamental building block of a scalable quantum computer.

Arxiv - A single-Atom Electron Spin Qubit in Silicon

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Good governance is the toughest part of ending poverty

noreply@blogger.com (brian wang) — Wed, 22 May 2013 09:58:50 PDT

In April the World Bank governors endorsed two historic goals: to end extreme poverty by 2030 and to ensure that prosperity is shared.

It will take a lot to end poverty: strong growth, more infrastructure investments, increased agricultural productivity, better business environments, jobs, good education, and quality health care. We have to do more of this in tough places, particularly those that are fragile and conflict-affected.

But it also takes overcoming institutional weaknesses and zero tolerance for corruption. Without improving governance it will not be possible to lift the 1.2 billion people who still live of $1.25 a day or less out of poverty and to ensure that economic growth will benefit all citizens.

Good governance and the role it plays in fighting poverty is complex. A finance minister from a resource rich but otherwise poor country told me recently that the fuel subsidies in that country, designed to protect the most vulnerable from high prices, are ultimately “anti-poor” because the rich benefit most, they are wasteful and ineffective. And another official from a middle income country described achieving shared prosperity as tough because a growing middle class has high expectations and becomes disillusioned by corruption and lack of services, making them less willing to support the state.

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Some Countries appear to want inflated poverty statistics to get more international aid

noreply@blogger.com (brian wang) — Wed, 22 May 2013 09:54:13 PDT

World Bank poverty statistics are based upon flawed purchasing power parity numbers. There is real poverty in the world but the poverty statistics likely have been substantially overstating the poverty levels for ten years.

Taking the bank’s 2012 figures at face value also implies that we have to believe the following:

* North Korea has roughly the same poverty rate as China.
* Individual consumption in India has grown at a paltry 1.5 percent per year since the country’s economic takeoff in the early 1990s, and the much vaunted Indian middle class only numbers 9 million people—in a country with over 900 million cell phone subscribers and 40 million cars.
* In 1981, China was poorer than any country in the world is today, with a level of individual consumption below the current level in Liberia.

World Bank Aid by country

China received over one billion dollars in aid until 2009. In 2011, China started giving out more development aid. China would not have a reason to suppress its purchasing power parity numbers. Some in China could get the free money from 2000 to 2010 while other parts were adding trillions to the overall economy.

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Path to getting salamander like regeneration under hospital conditions

noreply@blogger.com (brian wang) — Wed, 22 May 2013 00:49:19 PDT

Macrophages are a major immune cell type which roam the tissues engulfing invaders like bacteria and fungi. But they're not just involved in gobbling up debris. They actively determine repair - for example they are important in human muscle repair.

When macrophages were removed from salamanders, it had a "devastating effect" on their ability to regrow limbs. The animals ended up with fibrosis (scarring) and a stump.

Godwin believes that chemicals released by the animals' macrophages are essential for the regeneration process, and is conducting experiments now to investigate this.

"This really gives us somewhere to look for what might be secreted into the wound environment that allows for regeneration," he says.

"The long-term plan is that we'll know exactly what cocktail to add to a wound site to allow salamander-like regeneration under hospital conditions."

The work has implications not just for entire limb regrowth, but for "smaller, less ambitious" goals such as scar-less healing. Although scars perform a useful function in stopping blood loss and preventing infection getting into a wound, they inhibit communication between cells and this prevents regeneration, says Simon. Down the track, using the salamander's approach could maybe help with healing of burns, for instance, he suggests.

PNAS - Macrophages are required for adult salamander limb regeneration

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Ending $1.25 per day PPP poverty by 2030

noreply@blogger.com (brian wang) — Wed, 22 May 2013 00:42:26 PDT

The Brookings Institute has a study on getting poverty below 3% of population by 2030. The range of poverty outcomes for 2030 is large, implying that the future trajectory of global poverty is highly uncertain. Getting to the “zero zone”, defined here as a poverty rate of under 3 percent, by 2030 is unlikely to occur through stronger than expected consumption growth or an improving distribution alone. Both factors are needed simultaneously.

There is no magic ingredient for eliminating poverty. Rather it hinges on a complex recipe: better than expected consumption growth and distributional trends in favor of the poor; country-by-country progress in transitioning fragile and conflict-affected states onto a stable path; strengthening the resilience of vulnerable households and economies to other kinds of shocks; the incorporation of isolated or excluded sub-national populations into the orbit of their economies; more deliberate and efficient targeting of the poor, including the poorest of the poor, at a country and sub-national level.

While the future trajectory of global poverty is impossible to predict, our understanding of what it will take to eliminate poverty is growing. The challenge for the global community is to seize this knowledge so that the dream of achieving a poverty-free world becomes a reality

The 40-year period from 1990 to 2030 resembles a relay race in which responsibility for leading the charge on global poverty reduction passes between these three giants.

China’s relay leg is the most striking. It undergoes a dramatic transformation in which its population, which is initially predominantly poor, disperses over a range of consumption levels beyond the poverty line, driven by rapid, though often inequitable, consumption growth.

Age of Technological Disruption

noreply@blogger.com (brian wang) — Wed, 22 May 2013 00:09:34 PDT

"All of the structures that we use to run the world today— our civics, our politics, our legal systems, healthcare, education— are all structured for a world 100 or 200 years ago, not for the world of today. So we think we're in for a lot of disruption," says Salim Ismail, founding director of Singularity University.

ReasonTV's Tracy Oppenheimer caught up with Salim at the 2013 Milken Institute Global Conference in Beverly Hills, CA to discuss crowd funding, the next steps in technological expansion, and how we've entered the age of an information-based environment.

"It's happening across industries. The first few were newspapers, music, and electronic publishing. Those were the first three domains to be fully information-enabled. Now were moving to cars being information-enabled," says Salim, "we're turning everything in to a computational basis."

Singularity University's academic programs strive to "educate, inspire and empower leaders to apply exponential technologies to address humanity's grand challenges."

A major driver of the future economy will be the lowered barrier to forming a company. $100,000 to start a company instead of $20 million and the $100,000 can be crowdsourced if you have a good idea.

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South Korea should overtake Japan by 2017 on per capita income (GDP PPP)

noreply@blogger.com (brian wang) — Tue, 21 May 2013 23:36:51 PDT

Looking at GDP PPP numbers across the four Asian tigers shows that they are each slowly reaching, if not, overtaking Japan.

1993 Singapore overtook Japan in GDP PPP
1997 Hong Kong , and
2010 Taiwan in 2010

South Korea should overtake Japan as the richest [larger] country in Asia in terms of GDP PPP by 2017.

It was only in 1980 that South Korea had a GDP PPP that was less than one quarter of that seen in Japan at the time. South Korea has clearly come a long way since 1980, especially given that back then, companies such as Hyundai, LG, and Samsung were practically unheard of outside of Seoul.

The IMF still expects Japan to be ahead of South Korea in 2017 (barely). So it might be 2018 for South Korea to overtake Japan in per capita GDP PPP.

Bloom Energy has raised $130 million to bring total raised to $1.1 billion and are on track to be profitable in 2013

noreply@blogger.com (brian wang) — Tue, 21 May 2013 17:08:00 PDT

Fuel cell maker Bloom Energy has raised $130 million in new venture capital funding in May 2013 Bloom now has raised more than $1.1 billion in venture capital funding, including past investments from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, New Enterprise Associates, Advanced Equities, DAG Ventures and Goldman Sachs.

The company had become gross margin positive (on a pro forma basis),was "operating with a fully funded business plan" and was "on track with our goal to be profitable in 2013."

Bloom Energy is most likely not profitable even after 11 years. Bloom Energy CFO Bill Kurtz had said that the company was “half way to break even” in the Summer of 2012. Primack previously reported that Bloom’s retained earnings through Q3 2012 stood at negative $873 million, with $113 million left in the bank, and with positive gross margins on a pro forma basis.

A field of Bloom box fuel cells

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