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Issue no. 28, 2008 Published: Sep 15, 2008
Europe's energy funding 'unbalanced'
Scientists fire up giant atom smasher
Engineers create new gecko-like adhesive that shakes off dirt
Scientists build world's most powerful magnet
Diatom nanostructures bend light
Invention: Heart-repair pump
Invention: Graffiti warning system

Europe's energy funding 'unbalanced'
The European budget for fusion research is 'seriously flawed', and more funds should be shifted instead towards non-nuclear energy fields, according to the leading intergovernmental advisory body on energy policy. In its first review of the European Commission's energy policy, the International Energy Agency (IEA) also says that current European funding for energy research in all fields is insufficient. European funding for research is distributed through the framework programme. The current programme (FP7) runs from 2007 to 2013, and allocates just over EUR 5.1bn for energy research. By contrast, Europe plans to spend EUR 9.05bn on information and communication technologies and EUR 6.1bn on health research. The IEA review says that it is questionable whether current funding levels for energy research are 'commensurate with the ambitions of the commission in the energy field'. It calls on the commission to redirect more funding to energy R&D during the lifetime of the FP7 programme. Funding for fusion research is singled out by the report as a 'potentially serious flaw'. The IEA recommends that the commission act with urgency to shift investment away from fusion research into other forms of energy as, it says, developments in fusion will not mature in time to help meet the EU target of obtaining 20% of its energy from renewable sources by 2020.
Nature Sep 10, 2008	back to top

Scientists fire up giant atom smasher
Scientists Wednesday applauded as one of the most ambitious experiments ever conceived got successfully underway, with protons being fired around a 27-kilometre tunnel deep beneath the border of France and Switzerland in an attempt to unlock the secrets of the universe. The Large Hadron Collider - a EUR 6bn particle accelerator designed to simulate conditions of the Big Bang that created the physical Universe - was switched on at 0732 GMT to cheers and applause from experts gathered to witness the event. While observers were left nonplussed by the anticlimactic flashing dots on a TV screen that signalled the machine's successful test run, among teams of scientists involved around the world there were jubilant celebrations and popping champagne corks. In the coming months, the collider is expected to begin smashing particles into each other by sending two beams of protons around the tunnel in opposite directions. The collider will operate at higher energies and intensities in the next year, potentially generating enough data to make a discovery by 2009, experts say. They say the experiment could confirm theories that physicists have been working on for decades including the possible existence of extra dimensions. They also hope to find a theoretical particle called the Higgs boson - sometimes referred to as the 'God particle', which has never been detected, but would help explain why matter has mass.
CNN Sep 11, 2008	back to top

Engineers create new gecko-like adhesive that shakes off dirt
Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, are continuing their march toward creating a synthetic, gecko-like adhesive. Their latest milestone is the first adhesive that cleans itself after each use without the need for water or chemicals, much like the remarkable hairs found on the gecko lizard's toes. Earlier the group developed an adhesive using polymer microfibers that could easily attach to and detach from clean surfaces. But researchers said replicating the gecko's ability to walk through dirty surfaces yet keep its feet clean enough to climb walls has been tricky. In the new study they designed the adhesive with microfibers made from stiff polymers. Using microspheres that were 3 to 10 micrometres in diameter to simulate contaminants, the researchers were able to show that the microfibers pushed the microsphere particles toward the fibre tips when the adhesive was not in contact with a surface. When the fibres were pressed against a smooth surface, the contaminants made greater contact with the surface than with the fibres and adhered to the glass rather than to the gecko fibres. With each simulated step more and more microspheres were deposited onto the surface. After 30 steps, the adhesive shed about 60% of the smaller-sized contaminants onto the glass surface. The larger contaminants were harder to shake off because they contact a larger number of fibres, and then adhere better to the fibres than to the glass.
PhysOrg / Langmuir Sep 10, 2008	back to top

Scientists build world's most powerful magnet
Scientists at National High Magnetic Field Laboratory in Florida are building the most powerful reusable electromagnet in the world. The entire magnet will be a combination of coil sets weighing nearly 18,000 pounds and powered by jolts from a massive 1,200-megajoules motor generator. Once activated, the new magnet should be around two million times more powerful than the average refrigerator magnet. The electromagnet consists of two parts. The outer section, or outsert, will be a cylinder, 1.5 metres in diameter and 1.5 metres tall, and solid except for a small hole bored through the middle. Inside that hole rests the insert, nine coils made of copper and strengthened with silver wire as thin as 100 atoms across. Together, the copper and silver create the strongest material known to man. The pressures generated inside the insert will be equivalent to around 30 times the pressure at the bottom of the ocean. The scientists expect each insert to survive about 100 pulses. The outsert should last about 10,000 pulses. Current magnets of this power can be used only once. The forces they create tear themselves, and usually the samples being studied, apart milliseconds after they are turned on. Studying the same material over and over without destroying it could help scientists discover the properties of superconductors and other novel materials.
MSNBC / Discovery.com Sep 11, 2008	back to top

Diatom nanostructures bend light
Simple marine algae called diatoms have evolved intricate structures that allow them to manipulate light. Visible light is strongly diffracted when it passes through tiny holes in their silica-based cell walls, according to scientists at University of Exeter. Understanding the physical principles that allow diatoms to trap solar energy more efficiently may also help develop new synthetic replicas. Each half of the single-celled marine algae's 'petri-dish' shell has two layers that are covered with a regular pattern of tiny pores called 'nanostructures' - which can be highly-magnified using an electron microscope. The scientists performed elaborate optical experiments and found that these structures diffracted light very strongly. These light-manipulating properties could be exploited to assist the development of many biosynthetic devices - including tiny light-activated drug-delivery tools, according to the scientists.
BBC News Sep 10, 2008	back to top

Invention: Heart-repair pump
Growing numbers of people are waiting for heart transplants. And engineers are developing miniature pumps known as ventricular assist devices to help. Small enough to fit inside the patient's body, these pumps act like a second heart, boosting blood circulation and taking some of the load off the ailing organ. But researchers from the University of Utah say the pumps could help repair hearts too. Cardiac stem cells capable of regenerating heart tissue are naturally found in the blood stream in small numbers. The researchers have designed a pump able to capture and culture those cells, and inject them into the heart to stimulate repairs. The hope is that this would regenerate the heart sufficiently for the pump to eventually be removed.
New Scientist Sep 08, 2008	back to top

Invention: Graffiti warning system
Paint-based graffiti can usually be removed relatively easily from buildings, bus shelters and other street furniture. But graffiti that is scratched into surfaces such as Perspex is much more difficult to cope with and usually requires the entire surface to be replaced at great cost. So researchers at Curtin University of Technology in Perth, Australia, have developed a device that can hear when graffiti is being carved into surfaces. A set of microphones attached to the surface is connected to a computer program that has been trained to distinguish background noise from the tell-tale signature of graffiti scratches. When the computer picks up signs of vandalism in action, it triggers an alarm to scare off the perpetrators and call the authorities to investigate.
New Scientist Sep 10, 2008	back to top