Monthly Archives: February 2010

Achieving ultralow nanoscale wear of one atom per micrometer

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Many nanotechnology applications are plagued by very poor wear resistance of device components at the nanoscale. Gears, bearings, and liquid lubricants can reduce friction in the macroscopic world, but the origins of friction for small devices such as micro- or nanoelectromechanical systems require other solutions. Despite the unprecedented accuracy by which these devices are nowadays designed and fabricated, their enormous surface-volume ratio leads to severe friction and wear issues, which dramatically reduce their applicability and lifetime. Although there is a significant amount of research work going on in the area of nanoscale friction, at present there is much less research conducted on nanoscale wear. Researchers have now demonstrated extremely low wear rates at the nanoscale, representing a technological breakthrough for numerous applications in emerging fields such as nanolithography, nanometrology, and nanomanufacturing.

Deaths from Black Tar Heroin

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Whenever media stories report a surge of deaths from heroin use, it turns out that more potent heroin has recently arrived in a particular city or town.  For example, a recent L.A. Times headline reads

Black tar moves in, and death follows

and the story goes on to explain that

The death was part of a rash of overdoses, 12 of them fatal, that shook Huntington that fall and winter. All were caused by black-tar heroin, a potent, inexpensive, semi-processed form of the drug that has spread across the United States, driven by the entrepreneurial energy and marketing savvy of immigrants from a tiny farming county in Mexico.

These deaths are due to prohibition.  In a legal market, information about potency would be readily available, so few users would suffer these accidental overdoses.

Has Debra Medina backed away from Drug Legalization stance?

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by Eric Dondero

Debra Medina has never uttered the words, "I want to legalize drugs." But it's fair to say she's led some of her staunchest supporters to believe that she's willing to discuss the issue, and may lean in that direction. She's also made numerous comments in favor of a "state's rights" view on for instance, medicinal use of marijuana.

From the Austin American-Statesman, Columnist Gardner Selby, Dec. 10:

This protégé of libertarian-leaning U.S. Rep. Ron Paul is no sheep.

She told me that decriminalizing marijuana deserves a look.

Lindsay Malone, blogger:

Medina's supporters say she's going to legalize drugs and let drug dealers out of prison.

Debra Medina’s supporters also say she is going to legalize marijuana and let all the drug dealers out of jail. They say this will help save money and help eliminate property taxes.

From Patterico's Pontifications:

At the Texas GOP primary debate in January, Medina said she is willing to consider legalizing drugs and wants to eliminate Texas property taxes and replace them with a State-wide sales tax. Both ideas are worth considering but neither will pass anytime soon...

Now this from the New York Times, Feb. 14:

HOUSTON — Some days it is hard to be a neophyte far-right candidate in a governor’s race, even in Texas, where Republicans vying for the party’s nomination try to outdo one another to prove their conservative credentials.

Debra Medina found that out when she appeared on Glenn Beck’s radio show last week and fumbled a question about whether she agreed with conspiracy theorists who think the Bush administration was involved in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks...

While she supports some libertarian ideas and has been a longtime supporter of Representative Ron Paul, the Texas libertarian, she hastens to point out that she is not in favor of legalizing drugs.

Since the article hit over the weekend there's been little reaction from her more libertarian supporters as to the comments. Surely, it comes as a great dissapointment to many libertarians who were considering her candidacy.

Obama administration’s DEA still raiding legal Marijuana producers

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From Eric Dondero:

Key Obama administration officials made a big deal last summer, of their new vow to ease up on anti-Marijuana raids in states where its legal for medicinal use, such as California, Oregon and Colorado. The Pro-Marijuana Legalization movement, many of whom were supporters of Obama in his campaign, and still in his presidency, hailed the pronouncements. But it appears the euphoria may be short-lived.

Just breaking from the Denver Post...

Along with the raid, Jeffrey Sweetin, the Drug Enforcement Administration's special agent in charge of the Denver office, sent a message to anyone involved in Colorado's increasingly profitable medical-marijuana industry.

"It's still a violation of federal law," Sweetin said. "It's not medicine. We're still going to continue to investigate and arrest people."

Agents at the scene Friday evening said the marijuana grower, Chris Bartkowicz, had been taken into custody. Jeff Dorschner, a spokesman for the U.S.

DEA agents converged on the house Friday afternoon and, before leaving several hours later, removed dozens of marijuana plants in black plastic trash bags as well as numerous high-powered growing lights.

The Libertarian Party of Colorado has been on the forefront in opposing Obama's raids on Pot Manufacturers. Late last year they released this Statement on the ongoing investigations:

Another lie told by Obama when he promised to end raids on medical marijuana distributors, it hasn’t stopped in California and it hasn’t stopped the feds here either. Only now they are claiming they are investigating some other kind of crime, that remains unknown and happens to be taking place at medical marijuana dispensaries all over Colorado. So what did the owners of these places all suddenly decide to take up murder as a hobby? It seems unlikely that any of these places have committed any crimes with any actual victims.

"Yes We Cannabis" home page for Libertarian Medicinal Marijuana advocate Steve Kubby.

Firefly Mission to Study Terrestrial Gamma-ray Flashes

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High-energy bursts of gamma rays typically occur far out in space, perhaps near black holes or other high-energy cosmic phenomena. So imagine scientists' surprise in the mid-1990s when they found these powerful gamma ray flashes happening right here on Earth, in the skies overhead.

They're called Terrestrial Gamma-ray Flashes, or TGFs, and very little is known about them. They seem to have a connection with lightning, but TGFs themselves are something entirely different.

Right: An artist's concept of TGFs. Credit: NASA/Robert Kilgore [more]

"In fact," says Doug Rowland of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, "before the 1990s nobody knew they even existed. And yet they're the most potent natural particle accelerators on Earth."

Individual particles in a TGF acquire a huge amount of energy, sometimes in excess of 20 mega-electron volts (MeV). In contrast, the colorful auroras that light up the skies at high latitudes are powered by particles with less than one thousandth as much energy.

At this stage, there are more questions about TGFs than answers. What causes these high-energy flashes? Do they help trigger lightning--or does lightning trigger them? Could they be responsible for some of the high-energy particles in the Van Allen radiation belts, which can damage satellites?

To investigate, Rowland and his colleagues at GSFC, Siena College, Universities Space Research Association, and the Hawk Institute for Space Sciences are planning to launch an NSF-funded* satellite called Firefly in 2010 or 2011. Because of its small size, similar to a football, Firefly will cost less than $1 million — about 100 times cheaper than what full-sized satellite missions normally cost. Part of the cost savings comes from launching Firefly under the National Science Foundation's CubeSat program, which launches small satellites as "stowaways" aboard rockets carrying larger satellites into space, rather than requiring dedicated rocket launches.

Below: An artist's concept of Firefly on the lookout for TGFs above a thunderstorm. Firefly will make simultaneous measurements of energetic electrons, gamma rays, and the radio and optical signatures of the lightning discharge. [more]

see caption

If successful, Firefly will return the first simultaneous measurements of TGFs and lightning. Most of what's known about TGFs to date has been learned from missions meant to observe gamma rays coming from deep space, such as NASA's Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, which discovered TGFs in 1994. As it stared out into space, Compton caught fleeting glimpses of gamma rays out of the corner of its eye, so to speak. The powerful flashes were coming--surprise!--from Earth's atmosphere.

Subsequent data from Compton and other space telescopes have provided a tantalizingly incomplete picture of how TGFs occur:

In the skies above a thunderstorm, powerful electric fields generated by the storm stretch upward for many miles into the upper atmosphere. These electric fields accelerate free electrons, whisking them to speeds approaching the speed of light. When these ultra-high speed electrons collide with molecules in the air, the collisions release high-energy gamma rays as well as more electrons, setting up a cascade of collisions and perhaps more TGFs.

Right: Doug Rowland, principal investigator for Firefly stands next to the a life-sized model of the tiny satellite. Credit: NASA/Pat Izzo

To the eye, a TGF probably wouldn't look like much. Unlike lightning, most of a TGF's energy is released as invisible gamma rays, not visible light. They don't produce colorful bursts of light like sprites and other lightning-related phenomena. Nevertheless, these unseen eruptions could help explain why brilliant lightning strikes occur.

A longstanding mystery about lightning is how a strike gets started. Scientists know that the turbulence inside a thundercloud separates electric charge, building up enormous voltages. But the voltage needed to ionize air and generate a spark is about 10 times greater than the voltage typically found inside storm clouds.

"We know how the clouds charge up," Rowland says, "we just don't know how they discharge. That is the mystery."

TGFs could provide that spark. By generating a quick burst of electron flow, TGFs might help lightning strikes get started, Rowland suggests. "Perhaps this phenomenon is why we have lightning," he says.

If so, there ought to be many more TGFs each day than currently known. Observations by Compton and other space telescopes indicate that there may be fewer than 100 TGFs worldwide each day. Lightning strikes millions of times per day worldwide. That's quite a gap.

Then again, Compton and other space telescopes before Firefly weren't actually looking for TGFs. So perhaps it's not surprising that they didn't find many. Firefly will specifically look for gamma ray flashes coming from the atmosphere, not space, conducting the first focused survey of TGF activity. Firefly's sensors will even be able to detect flashes that are mostly obscured by the intervening air, which is a strong absorber of gamma rays (a fact that protects people on the ground from the energy in these flashes). Firefly's survey will give scientists much better estimates of the number of TGFs worldwide and help determine if the link to lightning is real.

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UK plan to create £40bn space industry and 100,000 new jobs

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Space Innovation and Growth Strategy launched

In July 2009, Minister for Science Lord Drayson tasked Government, industry and academia to develop a 20-year vision to grow the UK’s share of the global space market.

The Space Innovation and Growth Team’s (Space IGT) findings were announced at an event at the QEII centre entitled “The Space Innovation and Growth Strategy: A 20 year vision for the UK Space Sector”

The event took place between 10:00 and 14:00 on 10th February 2010 and 250 delegates from industry, academia, government and press attended.

Speakers:

  • Ian Pearson, Economic Secretary of State to the Treasury
  • Lord Drayson, Minister for Science, Department of Innovation Business and Skills
  • Andy Green, CEO Logica and Chairman of the Space Innovation and Growth Team
For more information please visit the IGS website

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