Nuclear battery developed

 

Long-lasting, water-based nuclear battery developed

Researchers working at the University of Missouri (MU) claim to have produced a prototype of a nuclear-powered, water-based battery that is said to be both longer-lasting and more efficient than current battery technologies and may eventually be used as a dependable power supply in vehicles, spacecraft, and other applications where longevity, reliability, and efficiency are paramount.

“Betavoltaics, a battery technology that generates power from radiation, has been studied as an energy source since the 1950s,” said associate professor Jae W. Kwon, of the College of Engineering at MU. “Controlled nuclear technologies are not inherently dangerous. We already have many commercial uses of nuclear technologies in our lives including fire detectors in bedrooms and emergency exit signs in buildings.”

Utilizing the radioactive isotope strontium-90 to enhance the electrochemical energy produced in a water-based solution, the researchers have incorporated a nanostructured titanium dioxide electrode acting as a catalyst for water decomposition. That is, the catalyst assists the breakdown of water in conjunction with the applied radiation into assorted oxygen compounds.

As a result, when high-energy beta radiation passes through the platinum and the nanoporous titanium dioxide, electron-hole pairs are produced within the titanium dioxide, creating an electron flow and a resultant electric current.

“Water acts as a buffer and surface plasmons created in the device turned out to be very useful in increasing its efficiency,” Kwon said. “The ionic solution is not easily frozen at very low temperatures and could work in a wide variety of applications including car batteries and, if packaged properly, perhaps spacecraft.”

By no means the first-ever nuclear battery – the NanoTritium device from City Labs being one recent notable example – this is the first nuclear battery that has been produced to exploit the inherent advantages of radiolysis (water-splitting with radiation) to produce an electric current, at higher energy levels and lower temperatures than previously possible. And at much greater claimed efficiencies than other water-splitting energy production techniques.

This is because, unlike other forms of photocatalytic methods of water-splitting to produce energy, the high-energy beta radiation in the MU device produces free radicals in water such that the kinetic energy is recombined or trapped in water molecules so that the radiation can be converted into electricity – using the platinum/titanium dioxide electrode previously described – to achieve water splitting efficiently and at room temperature.

As a result, whilst solar cells use a similar mechanism for the transference of energy via hole-electron pairs, very few free radicals are produced because the photon energies are principally in the visible spectrum and subsequently at lower levels of energy.

Beta radiation produced by the strontium source, on the other hand, with its ability to enhance the chemical reactions involving free radicals at greater electron energy levels, is a much more efficient way to produce extremely long-lasting and reliable energy. So much so, that the water-based nuclear battery may well offer a viable alternative to the solar cell as a sustainable, low-pollution energy source.

 

Source:  Gizmag.com

Gluten Causes Weight Gain

The case against gluten seems to have been closed with recent research from a Brazilian research team that published a report in the January 2013 Journal of Nutritional Biochemistry. It seems to have put an exclamation point on the wheat belly controversy.

The Study

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Lacking scientific data confirming the mechanics of how gluten may or may not affect obesity, the study was set up to examine the differences in specific genetic and biochemical markers between rats fed gluten and rats that were kept gluten free.

The “wheat belly” syndrome and how it leads to other health issues was the purpose of their research. The research team chose biological markers that could indicate the onset of obesity and metabolic syndrome, precursors to diabetes and cardiac issues.

Both groups of rats were fed high fat diets. But one group was gluten free and the other group’s diet was 4.5 percent gluten. Even without tracing their predetermined markers, it was obvious the gluten free mice exhibited weight loss without any trace of lipid (fat) excretion.

An Analysis Of The Study

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Sayer Ji of GreenmedInfo.com proposed this analysis: “… the weight gain associated with wheat consumption has little to do with caloric content per se; rather, the gluten proteins … disrupt endocrine and exocrine processes within the body, as well as directly modulating nuclear gene expression … to alter mamalian metabolism in the direction of weight gain.”

This study report, according to Sayer Ji proves that the major factor of obesity is gluten, not calories. Considering that both groups of mice were fed high fat diets and the gluten free mice lost weight without excreting lipids also implies that fat free diets for losing weight are bogus. This has been suspected by other nutritional experts who’ve abandoned matrix thinking.

Sayer Ji recommends that those who are overweight, pre-diabetic, experiencing metabolic syndrome, or suffering from irritable bowel syndrome try avoiding gluten grains, especially wheat, to determine from experience if gluten is the underlying cause.

There is evidence that gluten can be a factor in gut and psychology syndrome (GAPS) and even autism. (http://www.naturalnews.com/033094_gut_health_brain.html)

So How Did Wheat, “The Staff of Life,” Become A Weed of Disease?

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Wheat is not the same today. It has been agriculturally hybrid, not genetically lab engineered over some decades to resist fungus, grow more quickly, and be more pliable for industrial bread baking. As a consequence, 50-60 years ago wheat containing only five percent gluten has become 50 percent gluten today.

Agricultural resources used the hybrid process for wheat to accommodate the baking industry’s mechanical requirements of pliable proteins, leading to the 10-fold increase of wheat’s gluten.

The processed food industry’s concern for production efficiency and perception of consumer demands has focused on the bottom line with the usual disregard to negative health consequences.

Slightly different high speed methods of baking evolved over time. By artificially bleaching flour and adding “improvers” with often toxic additives and mixing the dough violently, loaves of bread could be baked, cooled, and packaged within a few, short hours. Cheap, unhealthy foods for many with massive profits for a few.

This is beginning to change with measures that seem to offset gluten’s damage for some. For example, Whole Foods has their own bakery providing fresh breads daily without bromides, which can displace the thyroid gland’s iodine contents and create hypothyroidism.

Other local bakeries may provide sprouted grain and real sourdough breads, which even some celiac sufferers manage to consume without adverse reactions.

 

Source:  hungryforchange.tv

Cheap invisibility cloak

invisibility cloak

 

 

Hats off to scientists at the University of Rochester in New York, who have managed to produce a cheap ‘invisibility cloak’ effect using readily available materials and a lot of clever thinking. Through a combination of optical lenses, any object that passes behind a certain line of sight can be made to disappear from view.

‘The Rochester Cloak’, as it’s being dubbed, uses a simplified four-lens system that essentially bends light around any objects you put into the middle of the chain — you’re able to see the area in the background as normal, but not the item in the foreground. According to its inventors, it can be scaled up using any size of lens, and the team responsible for the setup has used standard, off-the-shelf hardware.

“People have been fascinated with cloaking for a very long time,” said John Howell, a Professor of Physics at the University. “It’s recently been a really popular thing in science fiction and Harry Potter… I think people are really excited about the prospect of just being invisible.”

“From what we know this is the first cloaking device that provides three-dimensional, continuously multidirectional cloaking,” said doctoral student Joseph Choi, one of the team who worked on the project, when speaking to Reuters. “I imagine this could be used to cloak a trailer on the back of a semi-truck so the driver can see directly behind him. It can be used for surgery, in the military, in interior design, art.”

What makes this system so interesting is that it’s simple, inexpensive and capable of working at multiple angles, as long as the object remains inside the series of lenses. Howell and Choi say it cost them $1,000 to get all of the necessary equipment together, but it can be done more cheaply. A patent is pending for their invention but the pair have put together instructions on making your own Rochester Cloak at home for less than $100.

 

Source:  rochester.edu

Skeptic Sentenced to 15 Months in Prison for Fraud

Brian Dunning Sentenced to 15 Months in Prison for Fraud

 

 

Brian Dunning, creator of the Skeptoid podcast and the world’s worst “science” rap video, pled guilty to wire fraud that had allowed him to collect more than $5 million. Sentencing has finally occurred, and the result is 15 months in prison starting on September 2, 2014, followed by three years of supervised release.

This is great news for the skeptic community at large, since it may be a long enough sentence for Dunning to fade from memory and stop publicly representing the very people who are supposedly trying to stop people from defrauding others.

Meanwhile, this case had brought to light an actual skeptical activist who appears to be smart, hilarious, and actually effective at stopping frauds: Assistant United States Attorney David R. Callaway. In the government’s sentencing recommendation to the court last week, Callaway* argued beautifully against the idea that Dunning deserves to be insulated from the consequences of his actions, saying that “There is no “Get out of Trauma Free” card for white-collar criminals or, unfortunately, their families.” In fact, Callaway argues that Dunning should be punished harshly in part because his crime wasn’t motivated by desperate need:

The crime in this case was motivated by pure greed….This was no “smash and grab,” motivated by poverty, hunger, or substance abuse, but rather a clever, sophisticated, calculated criminal scheme carried out over several years by a man who certainly had no pressing need for the money.

Callaway then cites scientific evidence suggesting that harsh sentencing for “white-collar” criminals may present a greater deterrence than “blue-collar” crimes, which tend to be more spontaneous crimes of passion compared to the pre-meditation of something like wire fraud.

Callaway points to Dunning’s “celebrity” in the skeptical community as a further reason to punish him harshly (emphasis mine):

The enhanced deterrence value of a prison term would be all the greater in Mr. Dunning’s case, as he is at least somewhat of a “public figure” by virtue of his podcast, “Skeptoid: Critical Analysis of Pop Phenomena,” which he claims has a weekly audience of 179,000 listeners. Mr. Dunning has written five books based on the podcast, and he even has a “rap” video.

On the plus side, this prison sentence could potentially do wonders for Dunning’s rap career. But let’s hope not.

Earth’s Water Is Older Than the Sun

 

Earth’s Water Is Older Than the Sun

 

Much of the water on Earth and elsewhere in the solar system likely predates the birth of the sun, a new study reports.

The finding suggests that water is commonly incorporated into newly forming planets throughout the Milky Way galaxy and beyond, researchers said — good news for anyone hoping that Earth isn’t the only world to host life.

“The implications of our study are that interstellar water-ice remarkably survived the incredibly violent process of stellar birth to then be incorporated into planetary bodies,” study lead author Ilse Cleeves, an astronomy Ph.D. student at the University of Michigan, told Space.com via email. [Theories on the Origin of Life]

“If our sun’s formation was typical, interstellar ices, including water, likely survive and are a common ingredient during the formation of all extrasolar systems,” Cleeves added. “This is particularly exciting given the number of confirmed extrasolar planetary systems to date — that they, too, had access to abundant, life-fostering water during their formation.”

Astronomers have discovered nearly 2,000 exoplanets so far, and many billions likely lurk undetected in the depths of space. On average, every Milky Way star is thought to host at least one planet.

Water, water everywhere

Our solar system abounds with water. Oceans of it slosh about not only on Earth’s surface but also beneath the icy shells of Jupiter’s moon Europa and the Saturn satellite Enceladus. And water ice is found on Earth’s moon, on comets, at the Martian poles and even inside shadowed craters on Mercury, the planet closest to the sun.

Cleeves and her colleagues wanted to know where all this water came from.

 

Source:  livescience.com