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Issue no. 3, 2008 Published: Jan 18, 2008
Europe to capture carbon
Scheme to 'share environmentally-friendly patents'
EU launches new Microsoft probes
Researchers create the ultimate black
'Pac Man' compound could gobble-up nuclear waste
Contact lenses for superhuman vision
Microsoft patents process to spot slackers
Invention: Expressive pen

Europe to capture carbon
New power stations across Europe could be routinely fitted with carbon-dioxide capture and storage (CCS) technology within two years under a proposal by the European Commission. Next week, the commission will propose a directive on geological storage of CO2 that would require all new fossil-fuel combustion plants to have 'suitable space on the installation site for the equipment necessary to capture and compress CO2'. Builders of new plants would need to assess the availability of 'suitable storage sites and the technical feasibility of CCS retrofit' before being granted construction licences. If the European Parliament and Council approve the proposal, it could become law in the EU's 27 member states as early as 2009. Experts think that CCS could reduce global CO2 emissions by one-third by 2050, if widely deployed. The proposal is in line with the European Commission's Strategic Energy Technology Plan, released last November, which prioritised development and commercial deployment of CCS to reduce emissions in Europe.
Nature Jan 16, 2008	back to top

Scheme to 'share environmentally-friendly patents'
Four Large corporations have joined forces in an 'open innovation' project to allow public access to patents with environmental benefits. IBM, Nokia, Pitney Bowles and Sony, in partnership with the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), have compiled a portfolio of patents - the Eco-Patent Commons - that can be used in manufacturing and business processes. Companies can pledge patents that save energy and water, reduce the production of hazardous waste, increase recycling or reduce the amount of material used in a process. Sony, for example, has pledged a patent for recycling old mobile phones into digital cameras and other electrical equipment, with the aim of increasing the amount of material that can be reused in the electronics industry. The organisers hope that the scheme will encourage researchers and industry to create, use and develop processes in an environmentally responsible way.
SciDev.Net Jan 17, 2008	back to top

EU launches new Microsoft probes
The European Commission is launching two new anti-competition investigations against US computer giant Microsoft. The first will look at whether Microsoft unfairly ties its Explorer internet browser to its Windows operating system. In a parallel probe, the Commission will look at the interoperability of Microsoft software with rival products. The latest investigation by the Commission comes after two complaints, one by Norwegian company Opera, the other by pan-European software-makers group European Committee for Interoperable Systems. The move by the Commission's competition officials will stoke the flames of a long-running battle between Brussels and Microsoft that many thought had finally died down last year. In October 2007, Microsoft agreed to comply with the Commission's 2004 ruling that it broke European Union competition laws. Microsoft's move came after it lost an appeal against the verdict, which included a fine of almost EUR 500m.
BBC News Jan 14, 2008	back to top

Researchers create the ultimate black
Scientists at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York have made black paint that absorbs light almost perfectly. The paint is the 'darkest man-made material ever', according to the team, reflecting just 0.045% of light. Normal black paint reflects between five and 10%, and the new black is almost 30 times darker than the carbon used by the US National Institute of Standards and Technology as the current standard. The paint uses a thin layer of carbon nanotubes which trap light waves inside their cylindrical structures. This can be used by solar cells to trap more energy and hopefully produce new levels of efficiency. The team is now testing the material with ultraviolet and infrared light waves to determine whether the paint has any applications in the defence industries as an aid to stealth.
VNUnet UK Jan 17, 2008	back to top

'Pac Man' compound could gobble-up nuclear waste
An atomic scale version of the Pac-Man could help gobble up nuclear waste. The new work could lay the groundwork for ways to remove trace radioactivity from water, reuse dissolved uranium waste during reprocessing, perhaps even help clean up the fall-out of a 'dirty bomb'. A charged oxide is one of uranium's most prevalent forms, and is a tricky radioactive contaminant to deal with because it is readily soluble in water and inert. This means it does not react with many other chemicals, and is therefore difficult to lock up. Now scientists at the University of Edinburgh have taken this common form of uranium and enclosed it in a specially designed molecular scaffold to make it much more reactive and easier to handle. The newly discovered uranium compound has a shape which resembles a Pac Man, with a uranium atom in its jaws, which consist of organic molecules. No-one has been able to 'trick' uranium into behaving this way before and because this compound can do much more chemistry than possible before, this may help environmental scientists discover new ways of removing uranium from contaminated water.
Daily Telegraph / Nature Jan 16, 2008	back to top

Contact lenses for superhuman vision
Engineers at the University of Washington have used manufacturing techniques at microscopic scales to combine a flexible, biologically safe contact lens with an imprinted electronic circuit and lights. There are many possible uses for virtual displays. Drivers or pilots could see a vehicle's speed projected onto the windshield. Video-game companies could use the contact lenses to completely immerse players in a virtual world without restricting their range of motion. And for communications, people on the go could surf the internet on a midair virtual display screen that only they would be able to see. The prototype device contains an electric circuit as well as red light-emitting diodes for a display, though it does not yet light up. Ideally, installing or removing the bionic eye would be as easy as popping a contact lens in or out, and once installed the wearer would barely know the gadget was there, the developers say. The researchers built the circuits from layers of metal only a few nanometres thick, and constructed LEDs 0.3mm across. They then sprinkled the greyish powder of electrical components onto a sheet of flexible plastic. The shape of each tiny component dictates which piece it can attach to while capillary forces pull the pieces into position.
PhysOrg / University of Washington Jan 17, 2008	back to top

Microsoft patents process to spot slackers
Workers be warned. Microsoft is developing Big Brother style software capable of remotely monitoring a workers productivity, competence and physical wellbeing. Details of the process were discovered in a patent application filed by Microsoft for a computer system that links workers to their computers via wireless sensors that measure their metabolism. The system will let managers monitor workers' performance by measuring heart rate, body temperature, brain signals, movement, facial expression and blood pressure. The project is already causing major concern among civil liberties groups and privacy lawyers, who have criticised they system's potential to take 'the idea of monitoring people at work to a new level'. Unions fear employees could be dismissed on the basis of a computers assessment of their physiological state. Microsoft said the use of heart beat data was only an example of the type of monitoring that could be used in such an application.
Sydney Morning Herald / The Times Jan 17, 2008	back to top

Invention: Expressive pen
While the written word has taken great leaps in recent years with the advent of computer-based publishing and the global dissemination of text across the web, the humble pen is more or less the same device it has ever been. Now the consumer electronics company Philips says it has a breakthrough that could change the way we use pens forever. What the standard pen does not do so easily, Philips notes, is record the mood of the writer at the moment of writing. So it has developed a pen with sensors in its shaft that detect physiological factors, such as heart beat, blood pressure, skin temperature, and finger pressure. The pen also has a small actuator that can change the properties of the line that the pen traces out by switching inks and modifying the shape of the writing tip. A built-in chip then determines the writer's emotional state and changes the colour and quality of the trace accordingly. The result is a pen that produces a continuous record of how the user felt while writing. 'Signatures are currently always the same, yet some documents will be signed with enthusiasm, others possibly with hesitation. Having a recording of this could be useful for historical reasons,' says Philips.
New Scientist Jan 14, 2008	back to top