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My Love Affair with Space on Time.com

“A practical artificial leaf has been one of the Holy Grails of science for decades,” said Daniel Nocera, Ph.D., who led the research team. “We believe we have done it. The artificial leaf shows particular promise as an inexpensive source of electricity for homes of the poor in developing countries. Our goal is to make each home its own power station,” he said. “One can envision villages in India and Africa not long from now purchasing an affordable basic power system based on this technology.”

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The device bears no resemblance to Mother Nature’s counterparts on oaks, maples and other green plants, which scientists have used as the model for their efforts to develop this new genre of solar cells. About the shape of a poker card but thinner, the device is fashioned from silicon, electronics and catalysts, substances that accelerate chemical reactions that otherwise would not occur, or would run slowly. Placed in a single gallon of water in a bright sunlight, the device could produce enough electricity to supply a house in a developing country with electricity for a day, Nocera said. It does so by splitting water into its two components, hydrogen and oxygen.

The hydrogen and oxygen gases would be stored in a fuel cell, which uses those two materials to produce electricity, located either on top of the house or beside it.

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Nocera, who is with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, points out that the “artificial leaf” is not a new concept. The first artificial leaf was developed more than a decade ago by John Turner of the U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Boulder, Colorado. Although highly efficient at carrying out photosynthesis, Turner’s device was impractical for wider use, as it was composed of rare, expensive metals and was highly unstable — with a lifespan of barely one day.

Nocera’s new leaf overcomes these problems. It is made of inexpensive materials that are widely available, works under simple conditions and is highly stable. In laboratory studies, he showed that an artificial leaf prototype could operate continuously for at least 45 hours without a drop in activity.

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The key to this breakthrough is Nocera’s recent discovery of several powerful new, inexpensive catalysts, made of nickel and cobalt, that are capable of efficiently splitting water into its two components, hydrogen and oxygen, under simple conditions. Right now, Nocera’s leaf is about 10 times more efficient at carrying out photosynthesis than a natural leaf. However, he is optimistic that he can boost the efficiency of the artificial leaf much higher in the future.

“Nature is powered by photosynthesis, and I think that the future world will be powered by photosynthesis as well in the form of this artificial leaf,” said Nocera, a chemist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Mass.

Fiskers Karma sexy Euro edge!

“The Paris Motor Show is the perfect venue to unveil the striking images of the Karma shot by avant-garde photographer Miles Aldridge. The Karma proves environmentally responsible vehicles do not have to sacrifice design,” said CEO Henrik Fisker.

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The “Pure Driving Passion” campaign was born from the compelling Fisker design philosophy that the auto industry can only be elevated by refusing to compromise. Fisker Automotives unyielding pursuit of pure design has led to one of the most sustainable and accountable vehicles in automotive history and the campaign reflects these impassioned principles.

“Pure Driving Passion” is a celebration of how the Karma redefines the automotive industry through the seamless blend of eco-minded luxury, exhilarating performance, the sensuality of superior comforts and unparalleled sustainability.

Fiskers Karma sexy Euro edge!

A major objective of the campaign is to educate the public on how eco-consciousness can be sexy. To graphically communicate the sensuality of the Fisker Karma’s sustainable designs, world renowned photographer Miles Aldridge captured beautiful images that express the brand’s captivating, sexy essence. The campaign imagery reflects how Fisker Automotive is dramatically changing the industry with an unrestrained passion for pure design.

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Fiskers Karma sexy Euro edge!

“We wanted people to feel the emotion and sensuality of the Karma through the imagery while at the same time discovering the unique features such as the solar roof and plug-in technology that contribute to a design rooted in environmental consciousness,” said Marti Eulberg, Vice President of Global Sales and Marketing.

Fiskers Karma sexy Euro edge!

The website, www.FiskerAutomotive.com, includes all the images shot by Miles Aldridge and also a live action film, “Melting Ice,” shot by the Academy Award-nominated cinematographer of Inception, The Dark Knight and The Italian Job, Wally Pfister.

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The thrilling vignette showcases the sensuality and exhilaration of introducing the world to a pure driving experience with no inhibitions.

For developing the campaign and overall brand identity, Fisker sought the help of Southern California global branding experts Lambesis (Tacori, Gruppo Campari’s SKYY Vodka, LVMH’s Grand Marnier, Coca-Cola’s DASANI).

Sources also reported that the Norwegian embassy was evacuating personnel as wind predictions put Tokyo downwind of radiation and rain contaminated with caesium and radioactive iodine were predicted to hit the metropolis, said a Norwegian diplomat. The embassy is moving its staff to Kobe, Japan, 500 kilometres west of Tokyo.

“Much remains to be done before we can breathe a sigh of relief,” said Bellona physicist Nils Bøhmer.

“To say how long crews will have to work very hard to regain control is terribly difficult. It may well take weeks,” he said

An ex-government official who spoke confidentially with Bellona Web from Tokyo reported that no warnings had been issued for the capital’s general population, pointing to yet another apparent disconnect between information possessed by higher echelons of government and what is being released to the Japanese people – despite promised from Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano and Prime Minister Naoto Kan that they would be more open as the crisis persists.

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Four reactors remained in a coolant crisis and their coolant systems may altogether be destroyed, and despite recent restorations of electricity at other reactors, it remained in question whether electrical power would operate the quake and explosion battered cooling systems of the remaining reactors at all.

Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) said it had briefly evacuated its workers after the smoke was spotted at the southeast of the No. 3 reactor building above a pool storing spent nuclear fuel, though a blast was not heard.

The Tokyo Fire Department, which has been called in for efforts to inundate possibly exposed fuel rods with water,  stopped spraying for the day after the smoke rose from the No. 3 reactor building, Kyodo said

It will suspend the operation until safety at the site is confirmed, Kyodo said, adding whether it will resume on Tuesday remains undecided at present.

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The government’s Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said no injuries were confirmed in the incidents and that there have been no major changes in the radiation levels at the site.

Whether the reason for the smoke around reactor No. 3 were the reactor itself, from which TEPCO had planned a release of radioactive steam, or the fuel pond, remained unclear throughout the day in Japan, said the Russian environmental group Ecodefence in its ongoing blog on the crisis.

Hidehiko Nishiyama, a spokesman for the nuclear safety agency, confirmed this, telling Kyodo that the causes of the at reactors No. 2 and No. 3 remain unknown and that work to resuscitate power and cooling systems at the troubled reactors will be delayed by one day.

TEPCO said that some of the smoke was rising from a crack in roof of the building that houses reactor No 2, but believed it was steam rather than smoke arising from the spent fuel storage pond, though could not confirm that.

TEPCO reported that the smoke from reactor No 3 ceased at around 6 pm, but that the smoke from reactor No 2 was first noticed at 6:20 local time, Kyodo reported.

Dangers from the overheating spent nuclear fuel storage ponds – of which there are seven at Fukushima Daiichi, on for each reactor and a common pond – is as threatening if not more threatening than radioactivity emerging from the apparently ruptured cores of reactor Nos 1 and 3.

The primary danger is that spent nuclear fuel rods in the absence of cooling water would reach criticality – a chain reaction – in the open, a situation that occurs inside nuclear reactors that are shielded from spreading radioactivity. There are some 1760 tons of spent and fresh fuel filling the plant’s ponds in conditions of intentional overcrowding by TEPCO, as part of a plan to plan to transfer the fuel rods to interim storage offsite.

At present, coolant water is being pumped into the three reactors and the pools for spent nuclear fuel rods at reactors No 3 and No 4. The roofs and upper walls of the buildings that house the No. 1, No. 3 and No. 4 reactors have been blown off by hydrogen explosions, reported Kyodo.

Citing reports, Bellona’s Bøhmer said that reactor Nos 1,2,5 and 6 no longer seem to pose the threat they have in the past days, and that the most  critical issues remain at reactor Nos 3 and 4.

Bellona’s Bøhmer said there were two critical points remaining unresolved on Monday. The first is that reactor No 3, which has been extensively damaged, has to be stabilized.

Reactor No 3 operates on mixed uranium and plutonium oxide, or MOX fuel. Compared to uranium, which is the industry wide standard for power production reactors, plutonium poses far higher risks of harmful radioactive emissions.

The second critical point confronting Fukushima Daiichi as the day ended was the problem cooling the spent nuclear fuel storage ponds, and this will remain the case even if meltdowns are averted.

The work of replenishing the fuel ponds’ water supplies, noted Bøhmer, has been arduous, as workers have had to drop water, with questionable accuracy, from helicopters and douse them with fire hoses at ground level.

Manu reports have emerged about attempts to fill the ponds with water, but there has so far been no way to ascertain how much, if any, water the pools have taken on.

Bøhmer zeroed in on the particularly drastic situation with getting water into the spent fuel pond at reactor No 3.

“We know that the pond at the reactor No. 3 has little water, said Bøhmer.  He said he suspected that the pond must have a leak in it.

“I see simply no other reason why so much water should be lost,” said Bøhmer.

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“This project started last year and the current phase of research should be finished by the end of the year… We will (then) have clearer information about the feasibility of the project,” Landsvirkjun spokeswoman Ragna Sara Jonsdottir told AFP, adding that a final decision on the project would likely come within four to five years.

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After taking a hit when its Eyjafjoell volcano last year paralysed European skies for weeks with a massive cloud of volcanic ash, Iceland is seeking to instead draw benefits from its geology with the cable, which would allow it to sell energy extracted from geothermal sources like volcanoes and geysers.

“Among things being studied is the destination country. Potential countries include Britain, Norway, Holland and Germany,” Jonsdottir said.

Depending on the destination country, the cable would be between 1,200 and 1,900 kilometres (745-1,180 miles) long, making it “the longest sub-sea cable in the world.”

The project aims for the exportation of some five terawatt-hours (or five billion kilowatt-hours) each year, Jonsdottir said.

At current power prices in Europe, that corresponds to between 250 and 320 million euros ($350-448 million) in exports annually, and is enough to cover the average annual consumption of 1.25 million European households.

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The process, deployed by CoolPlanetBiofuels, also produces a byproduct that can capture carbon and also be added to soil to improve crop yields, leading to what Google Ventures described as a “negative carbon fuel.”

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“While we have made significant progress over the past couple of years, this new infusion of capital, coupled with the expertise of the Google Ventures team, enables our team to scale even faster,” Mike Cheiky, chief executive of Camarillo, California-based CoolPlanet, said in a statement on Thursday.

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The world’s biggest software company said its legal action against the operator of the Rustock ‘botnet’ — or network of infected computers programed to send spam e-mail — led to raids across the country on Thursday which effectively shut the network down.

Tech security bloggers who follow the activities of botnets worldwide noticed earlier on Thursday a sharp dip in spam e-mail coming from the Rustock network, which some estimate is responsible for almost half of the spam appearing in inboxes. However, they warned that total eradication requires long-term efforts.

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After getting the go-ahead from federal court in Seattle, where Microsoft had filed a lawsuit against the botnet’s operators, the company said it worked with the U.S. Marshals Service to raid hosting providers in seven U.S. cities early on Thursday, including Denver, Dallas, Chicago, Seattle and Columbus.

“With help from the upstream providers, we successfully severed the IP addresses that controlled the botnet, cutting off communication and disabling it,” said Richard Boscovich, senior attorney at Microsoft’s Digital Crimes Unit in a blog post on Microsoft’s site.

“This case and this operation are ongoing and our investigators are now inspecting the evidence gathered from the seizures to learn what we can about the botnet’s operations.”

Microsoft thinks there may be a million computers infected with Rustock malware, sending out as many as 30 billion spam e-mails per day, without their users’ knowledge.

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Several key components in the new version of Apple’s popular iPad tablet PC come from Japan, including the battery and the flash memory used to store music and video on the device, according to research firm IHS iSuppli.

The iPad 2 battery, which IHS iSuppli said is “unusually thin”, is manufactured by Apple Japan, an Apple subsidiary, and likely requires advanced manufacturing technologies that reside in the country.

“Logistical disruptions may mean that Apple could have difficulties obtaining this battery, and it may not be able to secure supply from an external, non-Japanese source,” the report said.

Apple iPad 2 parts said squeezed by Japan quake

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Production at many Japanese manufacturing facilities has come to a halt following Friday’s 9.0 earthquake and subsequent tsunami, which has left more than 5,600 people dead and destroyed swaths of the country.

Toshiba Corp, which is one of the companies that produces the NAND flash memory used in the iPad 2 according to IHS iSuppli’s research, briefly shut down a flash memory manufacturing facility in Japan and warned it could face hurdles distributing its products.

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Suppliers of other components whose factories weren’t damaged are likely to be affected by logistical issues, such as difficulties procuring raw materials and shipping finished products, the report said.

Apple launched the iPad 2 in the United States last week to strong demand, with many stores selling out of the device and analysts estimating that the company sold 1 million units during the debut weekend.

The current wait time for an iPad ordered online is 4-5 weeks. Apple declined to say how that would be affected.

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Research in Motion is a front runner in the race to convert billions of feature phone users into data-wielding smartphone customers but is seen possessing only a small window of opportunity to reinvigorate itself and match the momentum of rival mobile monarchs Apple and Google in a life-or-death battle for relevance, writes Alastair Sharp.

Prices for key technology components such as computer memory and LCD panels rose, as damage at Japanese plants and infrastructure caused by Friday’s earthquake and tsunami threatened to disrupt the global manufacturing chain longer than expected.

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Microsoft introduced its newest browser, Internet Explorer 9, including a do-not-track tool that helps you keep your online habits from being monitored, and is worth checking out, writes Business Insider’s Matt Rosoff.

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Now that you’ve had a few days with your iPad 2, what’s your opinion of it? The NextWeb’s Boris wanted to put together a list of 10 gripes about Apple’s new tablet, but could only come up with 6. Among them: The Smart Cover makes him feel dumb when he fumbles to re-attach it, the aluminum backing scratched too easily and the button ergonomics  are poor.

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I do mistakenly say that Blade Runner is one of ten PKD “books” that have been adapted, when I meant to say, “stories.”  Only a few novels have, so far, provided source material for films – Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, A Scanner Darkly, Confessions of a Crap Artist, Radio Free Albemuth.  Most of the movies are based on short stories (which do appear in books).

I produced, wrote and edited the video along with producer Craig Duff, who shot and provided additional editing:

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The Movies, Philip K. Dick and You

The video complements Lev Grossman’s new Time Magazine feature story on Ray Kurzweil.

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Link to video on YouTube

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The first iPod Nano watch was little more than a band that slipped through the Nano’s pocket clip. This new one works much better, with a custom fitted holder that’s also designed to protect the Nano from knocks and scratches.

This shirt isn’t trying to hide the fact that it’s all about spies. I mean, you’ve got your James-Bond-looking-dude right up front there, and the words “From Tokyo With Love” paying even more homage to 007. The big secret? The camera that James-Bond-dude is holding actually works.

Excited for Tron Legacy? Well, there may be more to this than just a new movie. Disney Imagineers are also developing a Tron Legacy ride, which has the potential to blow old Space Mountain out of the water.

Last year, BMW showed that if it did want to make a plug-in hybrid, it’d make a damn sexy one. Now, the company has announced its intent to bring the car, which can be charged using a normal power socket in two and a half hours, to the masses in 2013.