Forest Glen Preserve Photos

Photos from my hike in Forest Glen Preserve, Illinois 2 years ago.

photo of lantern tree

Other photos: Mount Rainier National Park – Mason Neck State Park, Virginia – South Carolina
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Pax Scientific

Nature Gave Him a Blueprint, but Not Overnight Success

Mr. Harman is a practitioner of biomimicry, a growing movement of the industrial-design field. Eleven years ago, he established Pax Scientific to commercialize his ideas, thinking that it would take only a couple of years to convince companies that they could increase efficiency, lower noise or create entirely new categories of products by following his approach.
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His radical ideas have so far found a cautious reception in the aircraft, air- conditioning, boating, pump and wind turbine industries. Mr. Harman’s experience is not unusual. Rather than beating a path to the door of mousetrap designers, the world seems to actively avoid them.
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Even in fields such as the computer industry, which celebrates innovation, systemic change can be glacial.
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In another hopeful sign, a world that long ignored energy efficiency is suddenly thinking of nothing else. “We tried for years to promote energy conservation, and we couldn’t find one who was interested,” he said. “Now the world has done a U-turn.”

Yet another example that new knowledge is not enough. It takes much longer for good ideas to be put into practice than seems reasonable (until you get your head around the idea it takes a fair amount of time for new ideas to be adopted).

One positive aspect of this reality is that if you can take advantage of new ideas before others you can gain an advantage. It isn’t necessarily true that just because now everyone knows about some new idea that you have no opportunity to use the knowledge before others.

Big Fat Lie

Big fat lie

‘I got actively attacked, but I guess I had to be,’ Taubes says. ‘What are the chances of writing an article that says the entire medical establishment is wrong, and them going, ” Good point, thank you, Gary. Can we give you an award?” When people challenge the establishment, 99.9 per cent of the time they are wrong. If I was writing about me, I’d begin from the assumption that I am both wrong and a quack.’

At least he is right on this. You challenge the accepted scientific understanding and this is what will happen. But if the evidence is there scientists will be won over by the evidence over time.

‘Reading the research was a reawakening for me,’ he says. ‘I did all the things that the rest of us did. I ate a low-fat diet, went to the gym and was getting heavier anyway. But once you flip your way of thinking about it, it seems so absurd: the idea that what you put in minus what you expend equals how fat you are. Our bodies don’t work like a car. We are not thermodynamic black boxes; we are biological organisms and we have evolved complex systems of hormones and enzymes and proteins. That’s how we are regulated.’

The obesity epidemic began in America during the late 1970s, which is also when the low-fat, high-carb diet-and-exercise revolution began. ‘You have a starting point,’ says Taubes. ‘The question is what is causing it? Then I realised that we were first told to eat less fat in the late 1970s, and, if you eat less fat, you start to eat more carbohydrates – it’s a trade-off.’

The whole healthy eating debate is sure not easy to figure out. But I think some things are clear. Eating too many calories and not exercising enough are problems. And it also makes sense that it is not only the number of calories that matter but what type. We are biological beings and how we process food is not just by a count of the calories. It seems the evidence of bad effects of too much carbohydrates is growing.

It also makes perfect sense that our bodies evolved to store energy for worse times (and some of us have bodies better at doing that). Now we are in a new environment where (at least for many people alive today) finding enough calories is not going to be a problem so it would be nice if we could tell our bodies to get less efficient at storing fat for bad times ahead. But we can’t so we need to take actions to remain healthy given the how our body reacts to what we eat and do. And it seems one of those actions might mean we have to eat less than we might want to.

Why did China’s Scientific Innovation Stop?

Why did China’s scientific innovation, once so advanced, suddenly collapse

By the time Joseph Needham died in 1995, he had published 17 volumes of his Science and Civilisation in China series, including several that he wrote entirely on his own.

The Chinese began printing 600 years before Johannes Gutenberg introduced the technique in Germany. They built the first chain drive 700 years before the Europeans. And they made use of a magnetic compass at least a century before the first reference to it appeared elsewhere. So why, in the middle of the 15th century, did this advanced civilisation suddenly cease its spectacular progress?
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Needham never fully worked out why China’s inventiveness dried up. Other academics have made their own suggestions: the stultifying pursuit of bureaucratic rank in the Middle Kingdom and the absence of a mercantile class to foster competition and self-improvement; the sheer size of China compared with the smaller states of Europe whose fierce rivalries fostered technological competition; its totalitarianism.

The Science Barge

The Science Barge is a prototype, sustainable urban farm and environmental education center. It is the only fully functioning demonstration of renewable energy supporting sustainable food production in New York City. The Science Barge grows tomatoes, cucumbers, and lettuce with zero net carbon emissions, zero chemical pesticides, and zero runoff.

From May to October 2007, the Science Barge hosted over 3,000 schoolchildren from all five New York boroughs as well as surrounding counties as part of our environmental education program. In addition, over 6,000 adult visitors visited the facility along with press from around the world.

NY Sun Works: The Science Barge

Limited growing space means growing upwards, with stacked pots for strawberries, and vines that grow up to the ceiling and are then folded over to grow back down. Instead of using pesticides, pests are kept in check using ladybugs, parasitic wasps, and other predators as needed. Environmentally friendly substrates such as rice husks, coconut shells, and Earth Stone (recycled glass), are used to aerate the root systems for the plants.

Most fascinating of all was the Aquaponic system for providing nutrients to the plants using catfish. Nutrients from the plants and worms feed the catfish, who produce nitrogen-rich waste, which feeds the plants. Tilapia were originally used, but eventually replaced with catfish, which were better suited to the climate. The result of all this effort is a bounty of fresh fruits and vegetables given out to all the children who visit the barge.

Printing Buildings

Projections indicate costs will be around one fifth as much as conventional construction. Using this process, a single house or a colony of houses, each with possibly a different design, may be automatically constructed in a single run, embedded in each house all the conduits for electrical, plumbing and air-conditioning.
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The machine will cost between $500K to $700K for average size (2000 sq ft — 200 m2) detached houses. This is not much given that a concrete pump truck is now $300k-$400K. Note that with one machine numerous homes can be built. The first commercial machines to be available this year, 2008. The machine will be collapsible to form into an easy truck load. The unloading and setup will take between 1-2 hours.

Behrokh Khoshnevis is the visionary who has been driving this concept. He is the Director of the Center for Rapid Automated Fabrication Technologies (CRAFT) and Director of Manufacturing Engineering Graduate Program at USC.

Very cool stuff. Related: Open Source 3-D Printing – A plane You Can Print – $35 million to the USC School of Engineering – Contractor Warned NYC About Crane – Sandwich Brick, Reusing Waste Material

Antimicrobial Wipes Often Spread Bacteria

Can we ‘wipe out’ hospital MRSA?

Led by microbiologist Dr Jean-Yves Maillard, the study into the ability of antimicrobial-surface wipes to remove, kill and prevent the spread of such infections as MRSA, has revealed that current protocols utilised by hospital staff have the potential to spread pathogens after only the first use of a wipe, particularly due to the ineffectiveness of wipes to actually kill bacteria.

The team is now calling for a ‘one wipe – one application – per surface’ approach to infection control in healthcare environments.
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The research, supported by a grant from the Wales Office of Research and Development for Health and Social Care, involved a surveillance programme observing hospital staff using surface wipes to decontaminate surfaces near patients, such as bed rails, and other surfaces commonly touched by staff and patients, such as monitors, tables and key pads, which were later replicated in the lab.

A three-step system was also developed to test the ability of several commercially available wipes to disinfect surfaces contaminated with strains Staphylococcus aureus, including MRSA and MSSA. The system tested the removal of pathogens, the transmission of them, and the anti-microbial properties of wipes.

It was found that the wipes were being applied to the same surface several times and used on consecutive surfaces before being discarded. It also revealed that although some wipes can remove higher numbers of bacteria from surfaces than others, the wipes tested were unable to kill the bacteria removed. As a result, high numbers of bacteria were transferred to other surfaces when reused.
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“On the whole, wipes can be effective in removing, killing and preventing the transfer of pathogens such as MRSA but only if used in the right way. We found that the most effective way is to prevent the risk of MRSA spread in hospital wards is to ensure the wipe is used only once on one surface.”

Engineering Education in India

Report recommends steps to improve engineering education in India

The number of engineering doctorates awarded in India each year is about 1,000 which is less than one per cent of the total engineering graduate degrees awarded every year. The international comparison showed that, in most countries, the number of PhD degrees awarded annually range between 5-9 per cent of the engineering graduate degrees awarded. Involvement of industry to sponsor special doctoral fellowships was one of the ways to attract good students to the PhD programme, the report noted.

Majority of engineering graduates not employable: Experts

On the other hand, tier-I and tier-II colleges, namely the IITs, IISc and the NITs produce , less than 1% of engineering graduates, 20% M.Techs and 40% PhD in India

The issue is not the best universities which are excellent. But the huge numbers of graduates are not receiving that type of education.

Cause of Super Heated Ground

Unexplained ground heat burns boy’s feet

There was no fire, but the ground was hot enough in a Colorado Springs park to burn through an eight year old boy’s shoes and cause at least second degree burns on his feet.
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After the boy was treated and sent to the hospital firefighters took surface readings that showed hard to believe temperatures. According to Chief Matthews, “The highest temperature we got at the surface of the soil with the sun shining on it was 800 degrees, which is pretty darn significant. Radiant heat from the sun will get it up around 150, 160 degrees, but not to that level.”

Firefighters have taped off the area and are monitoring it until they can figure out what’s causing the ground to get so hot. Tests by hazmat team members show there are no dangerous gases. Crews have cut a fire-line around the area to prevent the heat from potentially starting a wildfire.

Early assessments show the problem area is coal dust. Neighbors say the area has appeared blackened as long as they can remember. What has to be determined is if it was dumped here years ago or if there’s something happening underground. Crews from the state geological are on the way to figure out an explanation.

So can you figure it out? I was happy I could (if not I didn’t I would just leave off this sentence).

Cause of super-heated ground found

What they found has a relatively simple solution according to Kurt Schroeder with Colorado Springs Parks, “What the state representatives indicated to us is that the coal spoil that’s been on top of the ground for years and years reacts with the sun, heat of the sun and it spontaneously combusts.”

Because it’s coal refuse likely dumped at this spot years ago, the recommendation from geologists is capping it. Crews will dump two feet of fill over the spot to keep the sun causing the coal remnants from igniting again.

Good old scientific thinking leads to understanding what happens in the world around us. See more posts with scientific explanations for what we experience.

Mars Sunset

Photo from 19 May 2005 by NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Spirit as the Sun sank below the rim of Gusev crater on Mars.