Clownfish or anemonefish

Clownfish or anemonefish, which comprise about thirty species, are fishes from the subfamily Amphiprioninae in the family Pomacentridae.

Rain Drops Green Earth wallpaper, USC Researchers Develop Path to Liquid Solar Cells Using Nanocrystals

Rain Drops Green Earth wallpaper

 

USC Researchers Develop Path to Liquid Solar Cells Using Nanocrystals

Scientists at USC have developed a potential pathway to cheap, stable solar cells made from nanocrystals so small they can exist as a liquid ink and be painted or printed onto clear surfaces.

The solar nanocrystals are about four nanometers in size – meaning one could fit more than 250 billion on the head of a pin – and float them in a liquid solution, so “like you print a newspaper, you can print solar cells,” said Richard L. Brutchey, assistant professor of chemistry at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences.

Brutchey and USC postdoctoral researcher David H. Webber developed a new surface coating for the nanocrystals, which are made of the semiconductor cadmium selenide. Their research is featured as a “hot article” in Dalton Transactions, an international journal for inorganic chemistry.

Liquid nanocrystal solar cells are cheaper to fabricate than available single-crystal silicon wafer solar cells but are not nearly as efficient at converting sunlight to electricity. Brutchey and Webber solved one of the key problems of liquid solar cells: how to create a stable liquid that also conducts electricity.

The major issue with such liquid nanoparticles is that while the organic ligand molecules in which they were suspended kept them from sticking together they also prevented electrical conductivity by acting as an inadvertent insulator. Researchers Brutchey and Webber seemed to have solved that problem by inventing a synthetic ligand that actually facilitates connections between the nanoparticles.

As many of us already know any compound made with cadmium are toxic or represent a toxic threat to animals. The researchers are also working on a substitute for the cadmium.

Long-Held Genetic Theory Doesn’t Quite Make the Grade,Biologists Find

New York University biologists have discovered new mechanisms that control how proteins are expressed in different regions of embryos, while also shedding additional insight into how physical traits are arranged in body plans. Their findings, which appear in the journal Cell, call for reconsideration of a decades-old biological theory.

The researchers investigated a specific theory—morphogen theory, which posits that proteins controlling traits are arranged as gradients, with different amounts of proteins activating genes to create specified physical features. This theory was first put forth in the 1950s by mathematician and World War II code breaker Alan Turing and refined in the 1960s by Lewis Wolpert. It has been used to explain why a tiger has stripes, among other phenomena.

But some biologists have raised questions about the theory, which contends that physical features are necessarily tied to absolute concentrations of proteins within the morphogen gradient. If a certain critical mass of protein is present, then a given physical feature—for example, cells that make the skin on your forehead—will appear. If less than that critical mass is present, a different structure—say, the skin that makes your eyebrows—will appear, and a boundary will be formed between the two structures.

But alternative views have suggested that physical features are not necessarily the result of a specified number of proteins, but, rather, come from more complex interactions between multiple gradients that work against one another.

So the researchers went to the old easily genetically modified fruit fly Drosophila. They found that by taking some standard repressor proteins and by manipulating their binding sites. Another way of saying a single gradient of proteins does not have sufficient influence over the process to form the same body plan. Though if there are enough gradients working against each other to say form the boundary between the brow and eye socket then the system becomes robust enough for normal development. I’ve always been fascinated by species development – how does a mass of cells know to make fish gills instead of tiger stripes, or leave a space for the mouth above the chin, not just above your eyes.

The Psychological Resistance to Using Recycled Wastewater.

Fourteen states suffering under drought. Water use in Southwest heads for day of reckoning. Water-pollution laws violated more than 500,000 times in five years. Ruptures in aging water systems cause pollutants to seep into water supplies.

The above reporting from The Times speaks to a growing reality: the United States faces a water crisis. In making the feature documentary “Last Call at the Oasis,” I found the flow of evidence bracing in its breadth and acceleration, but the underlying dynamics are not new: we use more water than the system can naturally replenish, and we abuse the supply we have. During, say, periods of drought, we might fitfully curtail our consumption habits, but when it comes to long-term management strategies requiring long-term sacrifices, we balk. Isn’t clean and abundant water a basic right? We just need to find more water!

As the author notes there is no realistic new sources for fresh water, short term cities and farms could drain your favorite freshwater spring. Maybe there is some deep freshwater aquifer that we could also drain. Desalination might be a good back-up plan, but the costs are still prohibitive and the process itself would produce more greenhouse gases. Israel gets most of its crop irrigation water from recycled household waste water. Irrigation and to some extent shower water, does not have to be as pure as our drinking water, yet there is a physiological barrier people have to get over before gray water becomes acceptable. Some people have suggested that we start making gray water recycling part of the building code. There is not much reason we can’t start doing that for commercial multi-story buildings starting immediately. Perhaps providing a tax write off for the new requirements for the first few years.

Americans For Prosperity is a kind of astroturf group that would be more aptly named Americans Against Progress and Your Children. FACT CHECK: Americans For Prosperity Announces $6.1 Million Ad Buy To Push Totally False Green Jobs Claims

After pouring more than $8.4 million into bogus energy attack ads since November, the oil industry front group Americans For Prosperity announced yet another major ad buy of $6.1 million in eight states.

The latest ad is based on a set of mistruths about green jobs that have been widely debunked.

In the ad, AFP explains that “billions of taxpayer dollars spent on green energy went to jobs in foreign countries,” and uses four examples that supposedly prove that Obama’s clean energy stimulus created foreign jobs instead of domestic ones.

All four examples are either mostly or completely false.

1. The ad claims that $1.2 billion is being used to create solar jobs in Mexico. This point was completely made up by a random conservative blogger and has been repeatedly called out as a lie. This $1.2 billion loan guarantee was issued for a large, first-of-its-kind solar plant in California being developed by NRG. However, the blogger falsely wrote that the money was being used to create manufacturing jobs in Mexico.

In reality, the jobs created in Mexico had absolutely nothing to do with the loan guarantee. The only connection to Mexico was that some of the solar panels would be coming from a manufacturing plant located there. And even though the source of the panels had nothing to do with the decision to issue the loan guarantee, the company providing the panels, SunPower, explained that most of the panels were coming from America anyway.

2. The ad claims that a loan guarantee for an electric vehicle manufacturer went to jobs in Finland. This is also a made up story pushed by Fox News and conservative bloggers. In fact, all of the money used through the loan guarantee went toward building a U.S. manufacturing facility.

There were some jobs created in Finland during final assembly of the vehicles, but that was announced up front in 2009 when the loan guarantee was issued. According to the Department of Energy, all of the money set aside for Fisker’s next-generation vehicle manufacturing was issued for American operations.

And so it goes. The ads are composed of lies and distortions, along with tiny fragments of partial truths blown way out of proportion. Blogs can be a good source of news, but Americans Against Progress quotes one blogger who simply made up an urban myth about green jobs, repeated that myth without checking any primary sources. When an organization that gets millions from one industry has to resort to this kind of inane demagoguery it says a lot about the moral virtue of its agenda. The individuals  that engage in this kind of propaganda need to take a step back, look in the mirror and ask themselves if going through life with gutter levels of integrity is the kind of person they want to be.

Turning mushrooms and used coffee grounds into green money, 46 new species discovered in Suriname,Flamingo Tongue on Gorgonian fan

Make a living, recycle waste and grow food. Two guys figured out that none of those things cancel each other out – Upcycling’s Upshot: How Urban Mushroom Farmers Turned Scavenging into a Business

In 2009, Nikhil Arora and Alejandro Velez were recent graduates of the University of California at Berkeley who had both been offered positions in consulting and investment banking. Yet both were stuck on an idea they came across in their business ethics class: Gourmet mushrooms grow and flourish in recycled coffee grounds; thus, waste from one industry could be fertile ground for another. Trash, if not treasure, could be a sustainable and cost-free raw material.

…Back To The Roots began including Peet’s coupons in its grow-your-own-mushroom kits; Peet’s sold the kits in its cafes. Products from the two companies are shelved side-by-side in Northern California Whole Foods stores. What started as a small-scale farm supplying local restaurants and a few groceries expanded to include the mushroom kits, which now sell at 1,000 retail centers nationally. Since its founding, Back To The Roots has repurposed 1 million pounds of coffee grounds. After one year, the company had revenue of a quarter-million dollars; last year, it increased that number to $1.4 million. The company forecasts $5 million in revenue this year.

ironically even in this case recycling and growing still left some waste. The leftover reused coffee grounds. After a successful appeal on Craigslist, where gardeners picked up the repurposed grounds to use as compost, Nikhil Arora and Alejandro Velez were inspired to take the next step. Create an all-natural, sustainable, soil enhancer, which they plan to sell as organic MycoRootBoost fertilizer, an alternative to the chemical based plant nutrient mixes like MiracleGro.

Crayola Katydid & Cowboy Frog Among 46 Newfound Jungle Species

A spiny armored catfish and a cowboy frog are among 46 species that may be new to science discovered in the South American country of Suriname, researchers now reveal.

The species were discovered in a scientific expedition into southwest Suriname, which holds one of the world’s last pristine tropical forests.

“Our team was privileged to explore one of the last remaining areas of vast, unroaded wilderness in the world,” said Trond Larsen, director of Conservation International’s Rapid Assessment Program. “As a scientist, it is thrilling to study these remote forests where countless new discoveries await, especially since we believe that protecting these landscapes while they remain pristine provides perhaps the greatest opportunity for maintaining globally important biodiversity and the ecosystems people depend upon for generations to come.”

Katydid (Copiphora longicauda) observed during Conservation International's Rapid Assessment Program in southwest Suriname in August and September 2010. Katydids are recognised by scientists as indicators of habitat disturbance for an ecosystem. Photograph: Trond Larsen/Conservation International

This seems to be the best selection of photographs of some of the new species – New species discovered in Suriname – in pictures. Of the 46 species there are 18 pictured along with some other photographs. I cannot even find all 46 at Conservation International’s website ….except for the photos in a pdf you can download here – called A Rapid Biological Assessment of the Kwamalasamutu region, Southwestern Suriname, August-September 2010 (PDF – 3.9 MB) . The pdf is very well done. Even the photos are very clear. And lastly they did a nice little video synopsis of the expedition, Kwamalasamutu, Suriname Expedition – Rapid Assessment Program (RAP), Conservation International (CI)  

Suriname is a small country in the north-eastern coast of South America.

New App Helps NASA Keep Track of Meteoroids.

Surprising but true: Every day, on average, more than 40 tons of meteoroids strike our planet.  Most are tiny specks of comet dust that disintegrate harmlessly high up in Earth’s atmosphere, producing a slow drizzle of meteors in the night sky.  Bigger chunks of asteroid and comet debris yield dozens of nightly fireballs around the globe. Some are large enough to pepper the ground with actual meteorites.

With so much “stuff” zeroing in on our planet, NASA could use some help keeping track of it all.

Enter the Meteor Counter–a new iPhone app designed to harness the power of citizen scientists to keep track of meteoroids.

These science/nature apps are great yet it is unfortunate that so many of them or made just for the iPhone and/or iPad. In addition to all the Android users ( which comprised 42% of the Smart phone market as of 2011) they also ignore small laptops running Windows or MAC.

Flamingo Tongue on Gorgonian fan. The scientific name of the sea snail making its way across the fan is Cyphoma gibbosum. The animal itself has a neat brightly colored body and the shell appears colored due to live mantle tissue which usually cover the shell. If the animal is removed or dies you have an attractive through relatively plain tan and white shell. The shells are common on some beaches. The snail is becoming rare because of over collection by divers and the deaths of coral communities.

How President Obama Plans to ‘Double Down’ on Clean Energy

Early in his state of the union speech, President Obama renewed his call of last year for investments in clean energy. Unbowed by the troubles with Solyndra, Obama said he would direct the defense department to throw its buying power behind clean energy supplies for the U.S. military.

…Early in his state of the union speech, President Obama renewed his call of last year for investments in clean energy. Unbowed by the troubles with Solyndra, Obama said he would direct the defense department to throw its buying power behind clean energy supplies for the U.S. military.

Having the military move toward using some percentage of alternative energy and associated technology will have a big impact on the green energy business. The Department of Defense burns $18 billion worth of oil a year, four fifths of the federal governments’ energy tab. The president’s announcement was not exactly news since the military started the fuel transition a year ago, it was more a national recommitment to those goals.

LEDs offer a brighter future, Thawing permafrost part of cycle of global warming, The XL pipeline will cause a net decrease in jobs

In a report on real world savings using LED lighting from the U.K. – LEDs offer a brighter future, says report

A field trial of LED light fittings in social housing says the new technology can deliver huge energy savings, reduce costs and makes residents feel safer.

The study, carried out by the Energy Saving Trust (EST), measured the performance of more than 4,250 LED light fittings installed at 35 sites.

The EST said it carried out the trial because an increasing number of LED lights were now commercially available.

It is predicted the technology could dominate the lighting market by 2015.

“We like to test things in-situ in order to understand their real performance rather than rely on manufacturers’ claims,” explained James Russill, EST’s technical development manager.

But, he added: “We are at one of those rare times when there is a revolution, I think it is fair to say, within the lighting sector.

“LEDs promise to be the way forward for the whole sector, to be honest. There are so many benefits: they can be smaller, brighter; it is one of those rare technologies where the trial has shown it performs better than the lighting systems it is replacing but, at the same time, using less energy.”

LED appreciation

At the 35 sites in the field trial, the authors of the Lit Up report calculated that the LED fittings saved more than three million kilowatt hours (kWh) each year when compared with the previous lighting.

“The trial has shown that the installation of LED light fittings can be used to maintain or enhance light levels, and in both cases can generate energy savings,” the report’s authors wrote.

In buildings where LED was installed residents also reported that they found them “fresher, brighter and more like daylight” and generally made the building a more pleasant place to live. They also reported that areas like stairwells and parking lots seemed safer because of the better lighting.

As Permafrost Thaws, Scientists Study the Risks

If a substantial amount of the carbon should enter the atmosphere, it would intensify the planetary warming. An especially worrisome possibility is that a significant proportion will emerge not as carbon dioxide, the gas that usually forms when organic material breaks down, but as methane, produced when the breakdown occurs in lakes or wetlands. Methane is especially potent at trapping the sun’s heat, and the potential for large new methane emissions in the Arctic is one of the biggest wild cards in climate science.

Scientists have declared that understanding the problem is a major priority. The United States Department of Energy and the European Union recently committed to new projects aimed at doing so, and NASA is considering a similar plan. But researchers say the money and people devoted to the issue are still minimal compared with the risk.

For now, scientists have many more questions than answers. Preliminary computer analyses, made only recently, suggest that the Arctic and sub-Arctic regions could eventually become an annual source of carbon equal to 15 percent or so of today’s yearly emissions from human activities.

But those calculations were deliberately cautious. A recent survey drew on the expertise of 41 permafrost scientists to offer more informal projections. They estimated that if human fossil-fuel burning remained high and the planet warmed sharply, the gases from permafrost could eventually equal 35 percent of today’s annual human emissions.

If, and it is a big if considering that in terms of public policy the debate has been hijacked by anti-science pro-industry lobbyists, if humans could get their emissions within an acceptable range the gases escaping from the permafrost could be reduced to maybe 10 percent of current human caused emissions.

Unless you do some research on the internet it is unlikely anyone will here the case against the TransCanada XL pipeline. And even the net is dominated by stories which echo falsehoods about the benefits of the pipeline. The XL pipeleine will not result in a net increse in jobs. It will not create the 20,000 jobs that TransC predicts. It will produce far less than that number and even those jobs will only last for two years. The pipeline will not increase manufacturing jobs here in the U.S. Most of the pipe has already been made or contracted for through steel companies in India and Korea. The pipeline will not reduce regular gas or diesel fuel prices. On the contrary the prices of those fuels will go up. When they do they will destroy more jobs than the pipeline creates. Remember the BP Gulf spill and how they promised a great clean-up and they would compensate those who lost money because of the spill. BP did not exactly keep its word. There is no reason to think TransCanada will either. And there will be spills. There have already been spills on the Canadian part of the pipeline. They claim they will be using the safest pipe ever. That has already been proven false. So to sum up, there will be a net loss of jobs. The inevitable spills will cost billions in clean-up and we all know from experience there is no such thing as a complete clean-up or a clean-up that undoes the damage caused. Fuel prices will go up – most of the fuel sold will go to a Saudi company that will sell the fuel on the world market. Mid-westerners in particular will be paying higher fuel prices. The cost of environmental impact are likely  be in the billions. XL pipeline – Pipe dreams? Jobs Gained, Jobs Lost by the Construction of Keystone XL.pdf file.

While anti-environment zealots ( The Wall Street Journal, Fox News, The Washington Times) continue to do their best to disparage and lie about green technology and job creation, the fact is that green tech has the potential to create far more jobs now and in the future then the entire oil industry.

Blue and Yellow tree frog. or poison tree frog, Dendrobates tinctorius.

Abstract Blue Energy wallpaper, ‘Solar trees’ sprout up parking lots, New Zealand’s lost penguin heads home

Abstract Blue Energy wallpaper

 

‘Solar trees’ sprout up in California county’s parking lots

The frustrating search for a shady spot to park is about to get easier. But the new trees being planted at nine big parking lots in the San Jose, Calif., area aren’t leafy green saplings, they’re big silver specimens with 12-foot-tall trunks and broad steel canopies that will shield cars from the sun – and produce solar power.

Known as “solar trees” because they are topped with photovoltaic cells, the “groves” are sprouting up in California parking lots at Santa Clara County government buildings and health clinics in San Jose and Gilroy, and at a jail in Milpitas.

The shade they create for cars is just a popular side benefit, though cutting off the sun’s glare also will save some energy by reducing the need for motorists to turn on the air conditioning right away in hot weather. The primary benefit of the parking lot projects is that the power they produce will save the county about $18 million in electrical costs over a 25-year period and reduce greenhouse gases.

I think its true pretty much everywhere that if a parking lot has some islands or edges where there are shade trees many people try to get those spaces first. Especially local employees that are going to be there all day. If they go out for lunch their car is cooler. While car paints seem to have improved sitting in the sun day after day does have a tendency to fade the paint. So lots like this are a plus for all gas vehicles as well.

New Zealand’s lost penguin heads home

Fattened up on a diet of “fish milkshakes” and escorted by his own personal veterinary team, the world’s most famous penguin, Happy Feet, sets sail Monday for the icy waters he calls home.

The emperor penguin washed up on a beach just outside the New Zealand capital Wellington in mid-June — weak, emaciated and more than 3,000 kilometres (1,900 miles) from the Antarctic colony where he hatched about three-and-a-half years ago.

The wayward bird’s unexpected appearance stunned wildlife experts, who said he was only the second emperor ever recorded in New Zealand, and captivated the public, which closely followed every turn in his struggle for survival.

It sounds mean and probably some of the people pointing it are mean, but it did cost a lot to operate on, rehabilitate and carry Happy Feet back to his home. Money they say that could have been spent on large-scale conservation efforts. It’s difficult to quantify costs and benefits in cases like this. Suddenly everyone in New Zealand and millions of people around the world took an interests in penguin conservation. advertising campaigns to raise wildlife and conservation awareness can cost hundreds of thousands. So happy Feet has actually turned out to be a relatively cheap investment in that regard. The publicity has also greatly increased attendance at the Wellington Zoo. Another plus.  Happy Feet will be fitted with a GPS tracker so researchers and the public can monitor his progress in the wild at http://www.wellingtonzoo.com.

I read two ridiculous opinion columns this weekend about privatizing NOAA ( which contains the National Weather Service and the National Hurricane Center. Why do these amazingly ignorant people want to trash the NOAA. Because they think Weather.com( they operate the Weather Channel) and Accuweather do a better job of tracking the weather. It is true that while you can check out NWS and NHC reports on-line 24/7 the NOAA does not have its own TV station. Guess where Weather.com and Accuweather get their base data. From the NOAA. The private weather companies have their own meteorologists who analyze the data, but that is the only value they add for the most part. Some localities have their own radar. NOAA has all the tools – weather satellites, weather balloons, radar and weather tracking stations located around the world – weather is not local – it is a world-wide phenomenon. Local radar might give you a good picture of the next 24 hours, but that is about all. This article drives the point home – Weather Satellites And Storm Warnings Threatened By Federal Budget Cuts

Detailed images taken by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) satellites over the last several days enabled weather forecasters to provide a fairly precise picture of just when and where Hurricane Irene was headed and how strong she would be. The satellites also relayed this critical information early enough so that people along the storm’s path had days to stock up on food and water and, if necessary, move to higher ground.

“A difference of five or 10 miles per hour in a hurricane can make a difference in as much as a foot of flooding,” said Dan Satterfield, a weatherman in Huntsville, Ala. “And every mile of accuracy you can get makes the forecast that much more accurate, allowing you to tell people where to evacuate.”

But with the recent decision by Congress to allocate less than half of the billion dollars of funding needed to maintain and upgrade the fleet, officials warn of an upcoming gap in the service relied upon by weather forecasters, as well as the armed forces, search-and-rescue teams, energy companies and climate modelers.

In 2016, NOAA anticipates that the polar-orbiting satellites most critical in forecasting extreme weather events will die out. And without enough money to keep research and construction on track over the next couple of years, Kathryn Sullivan, deputy administrator for NOAA, noted that they will not be ready in time to launch replacements.

…Two basic types of NOAA satellites are currently watching the weather from above: geostationary satellites that appear to hover in place at an elevation of 22,300 miles and polar satellites that orbit north-south from about 540 miles. Sullivan explained how critical these complementing systems were for predictions of extreme weather events.

“When you turn on your TV, or pick up your smart phone, the three- to seven-day weather outlook you see is coming from NOAA,” she said, adding that the endangered polar-orbiting satellites are responsible for 93 percent of the data that is fed into her agency’s forecast models and then provided to the likes of The Weather Channel and AccuWeather.

 

Not that all private enterprise is evil, I’m a believer in the concept of being able to make money and do good at the same time. That said we already have examples of the kind of agenda driven weather and climate reports we can get when such essential public information is left in the hands of private enterprise. NY Post distorts facts to claim climate change science is “unraveling”. The Post has the reputation of being a yellow rag because it reports the opinions of zealots as facts. Nine of the 10 loudest climate-denying scientists tied to Exxon. When some businesses don’t get the weather and climate science they like, they just pay for junk science that affirms their opinions. These special interests do not just make a lot of noise on TV they actually use their highly biased junk science to get legislation passed that affects everyone – Koch And Exxon Pay To Write State Legislation Repealing Climate Change Laws

Maybe we need those new generation weather satellites, but the country cannot afford them now because President Obama went on some kind of wild spending spree. The media and hundreds of pundits with a radical agenda can repeat this myth all they like. Perhaps they believe that repetition is magic which makes false things true. Three Charts To Email To Your Misinformed Family and Friends

Obama's so-called spending spree

Bush-Obama Deficit Chart

The Stimulus and Jobs. Bush-Obama-Jobs-Chart

Why This Matters

These things really matter. We all want to fix the terrible problems the country has. But it is so important to know just what the problems are before you decide how to fix them. Otherwise the things you do to try to solve those problems might just make them worse. If you get tricked into thinking that Obama has made things worse and that we should go back to what we were doing before Obama — tax cuts for the rich, giving giant corporations and Wall Street everything they want — when those are the things that caused the problems in the first place, then we will be in real trouble.

These charts matter in the context of today’s post because of the fallacy of Congress saying we cannot afford the best new equipment for the NOAA. Just not true. This is the time to spend. Spending will create jobs and provide the national security America needs for the future.