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Issue no. 7, 2011 Published: Feb 18, 2011
Scientists build first 'antilaser'
Genetic engineering brings cloned crops closer
Foreshocks may warn that a big quake is coming
Machine turns plastic bags into fuel
Global warming: Science or sensation?
Can Google searches predict Oscar winners?

Scientists build first 'antilaser'
The laser - a 50-year-old invention now used in everything from CDs to laser pointers - has met its match in the 'antilaser', the first device capable of trapping and cancelling out laser beams. While such a device would seem most fitting in a science fiction movie, its real-world application will likely be in next-generation, optical computers, which will be powered by light in addition to electrons. While a laser takes in electrical energy and emits light in a very narrow frequency range, the antilaser takes in laser light and transforms it into heat energy. But it could be easily converted into electrical energy, according to researchers from Yale University, who developed the antilaser. Conventional lasers use a so-called 'gain medium', such as a semiconductor material, to produce a focused beam of light waves. The new device uses silicon as an absorbent 'loss-medium' that traps light waves, which bounce around until they are converted into heat. The most obvious use of the device is in computing. Instead of having chips with transistors and silicon, these new computers will use both light and electrical energy. Ultimately, the technology could find its way in radiology, according to the researchers.
Reuters / Science Feb 17, 2011	back to top

Genetic engineering brings cloned crops closer
The production of exact genetic replicas of important food crops has come a step closer. By combining mutations that abolish the shuffling of genes during sexual reproduction, researchers have found a way to force sexually reproducing plants to clone themselves through seeds. The new method has so far only been tested in the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana, but researchers at the French National Institute for Agricultural Research in Versailles are working to extend the findings to crops. Such an advance could allow farmers to propagate their own crops, rather than buying seed each year. It would also speed up the time it takes for companies to generate new plant breeds. Many of the hardiest, most productive crops are hybrids of two genetically disparate cultivars. But the beneficial combination of genes that makes the hybrids so robust disappears in the next generation because the genes are shuffled into new combinations during sexual reproduction.
Nature News / Science Feb 17, 2011	back to top

Foreshocks may warn that a big quake is coming
Advance warning is the ultimate prize for earthquake studies. Now, for the first time, one study offers tantalising evidence that it may be possible to build such a system to warn of some impending large quakes about an hour before they strike. The finding comes from an analysis of the seismic record from the lead-up to a devastating earthquake that hit Turkey in 1999. This revealed that foreshocks rippled away from the source of the rupture in the 45 minutes before the quake - the first time that foreshocks have been conclusively linked to a major earthquake. A team of French and Turkish geologists studied seismograms recorded before the Izmit earthquake, which killed some 17,000 people. In one recording, the team saw five small shocks in the final 20 minutes before the event, each characterised by a signature sequence of two types of waves, called P-waves and S-waves. In each of the five small shocks, a P-wave was followed 2.4 seconds later by a higher-amplitude S-wave. P-waves are sometimes known as primary waves, because they travel faster through the Earth and so are the first to arrive at monitoring stations. The strongest of the shocks was also recorded at other nearby stations. By performing the same calculations on those records, the researchers could work out exactly where the shocks originated. This turned out to be within a few hundred metres of the focus of the Izmit quake itself, suggesting that the quake and the shocks were linked.
New Scientist / Science Feb 17, 2011	back to top

Machine turns plastic bags into fuel
A Japanese inventor has created a machine suitable for home use that can turn plastic waste into fuel. The plastic in bags, bottles, caps and other packaging products is made from oil. Akinori Ito's machine turns it back to its original form via a carbon-negative process. The device heats up the plastic, traps the vapours in a system of pipes and water chambers that cool the vapours and condense them back into crude oil. The crude is suitable for use in generators and some types of stoves. It can be further refined into gasoline. The machine can convert a kilogram of plastic waste into a litter of oil using a kilowatt-hour of energy. The current system costs USD 10,000, but Ito hopes the price will fall as demand and production rise. Ito's machine is not the first to convert waste plastic into fuel, but the first one that is built for home use. Other solutions are larger, such as the Envion Oil Generator, which is capable of processing 10,000 tons of plastic waste annually. Each ton of waste translates to three to five barrels of crude oil that can be further refined to commercial fuels such as gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel. A demonstration plant opened in Washington in 2009. While burning the oil created by these machines releases CO2 into the atmosphere, they are solutions to the growing piles of waste plastic. According to Envion, about 50m tons of plastic waste is generated each year. If all that was converted back to oil, it would also help reduce reliance on foreign oil, the company says.
MSNBC Feb 15, 2011	back to top

Global warming: Science or sensation?
The debate over the veracity of global warming may be judged not by pure science but rather, perception. Being in a warm room can make the idea of global warming seem more likely. A new study by researchers at Berkeley University and the University of Chicago finds that when people feel warmer-either because they are out in the hot sun or because they are in an overheated room-they believe in global warming more. Participants in one study who were asked to answer a questionnaire outdoors were more likely to report that global warming is a proven fact the higher the outdoor temperature. To confirm that the feeling of warmth is what sways participants' views, rather than the hot weather itself as evidence of a warming planet, the researchers conducted the same experiment indoors. They found that participants answering the questionnaire in a heated cubicle were more likely to believe in global warming, suggesting that it was the experience of heat, not the information that it conveyed, that impacted people's beliefs. The researchers then tested the idea that feeling warm allows people to form a sharper image in their minds of a world becoming hotter, which in turn intensifies people's beliefs in global warming. Participants in one experiment indicated the sharpness or dullness with which they were imagining hot arid landscapes by adjusting the clarity of photos. Those in a heated cubicle made the images of hot and arid landscapes look much sharper than did those who were in a room- temperature cubicle. Moreover, showing people clearer images of these same hot landscapes led them to believe in global warming more.
UC Berkeley / Journal of Personality and Social Psychology Feb 10, 2011	back to top

Can Google searches predict Oscar winners?
Google has produced a new tool that attempts to use search trends to predict the Oscar winners. Niv Efron, of Google's Insights for Search team, says that the Best Picture winners from the last three years - The Hurt Locker, Slumdog Millionaire and No Country for Old Men - have all shown an upward trend in searches for at least four weeks before the awards, along with high interest in the New York region. Apply that pattern to this year's nominees, and The Social Network comes out in front ahead of Black Swan and The King's Speech. So is the Facebook biopic destined for Oscar success? 'We can't say for sure what will happen this year, since searches can only reflect what people are interested in, but it's fun to look for patterns that persist year after year,' says Efron. You can make your own predictions with Google's Oscar Search Trends site, which provides data for every nominee in all of the awards - but will they be right? Google has previously used search trends to successfully predict flu outbreaks and make economic forecasts, so perhaps the occupants of the Googleplex will join Hollywood's darlings in celebrating come Oscar night on February 27th.
New Scientist Feb 16, 2011	back to top