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See http://pubs.acs.org/stoken/presspac/presspac/full/10.1021/ja2100005 for technical details. As near as I can tell, best case is 250mg/g of the scrubbing compound -- so a scrubber that will grab the CO2 from burning 10 gallons of gasoline would weigh 800 lbs (at least -- I think that the weight of the fumed silica support material is not counted in that figure).

1. Although I used this as an example, it's irrelevant to my argument because I foresaw this and used the stronger example of pre-industrial societies.

That said, I believe there is more to poor resource-rich countries than just external exploitation (though I'm sure this is a factor in some cases). Internal political corruption is a serious problem in most of these countries, and this factor greases the wheels of external exploitation too. However, you also have issues unrelated to exploitation such as populations that have a largely pre-industrial mindset and lifestyle. People hate change and going from subsistence farming to factory work to service work is a traumatic transition that takes many years even in the best case. Further, not much can get done in countries with high levels of internal violence, not all of which is due to outside factors. It should be noted that there's a low hanging fruit effect here too...all the easy to industrialize nations have already industrialized, leaving only the hardest cases. Lastly, there are poor resource-poor nations too (Bangladesh and Cambodia for instance), so who's exploiting them?

2. While thermodynamic limitations are indeed an issue, and an energy crisis could cause us some serious harm in the near future, I think the situation isn't nearly as bad as you suggest.

On the improving energy input front, we've really limited ourselves. We may be near the maximum conversion efficiency (for steam engine-based electricity generation), but we're essentially not making use of nuclear power. The amount of energy we could be extracting from nuclear sources is enormous, and we're basically letting it sit there unused for non-technical reasons. Furthermore, in the future there may be breakthroughs in fusion technology that give us access to vast quantities of energy. I don't know when this will occur, but conservatively ITER will be producing 450MW using D-T by 2026, and this example will lead to the construction of many more fusion plants. There could also be a paradigm shift in electricity generation technology that ditches the steam engine for something better (one such route is already suggested by photovoltaics).

More importantly though, your analysis ignores increases in energy efficiency on the user's end. The energy efficiency of devices and practices has been improving greatly, and this seems unlikely to grind to a halt anytime soon due to the broad nature of such improvements. Whenever the efficiency improvement of one area slows down, other areas pick up the slack. Here's some examples of what's in store: Nanotechnology promises to greatly improve efficiency by allowing the formation of perfect structures (like graphene) with exceptional properties that were impossible before. Computer hardware and software are also continuing to improve dramatically for the time being. Robotics promises to dramatically increase labor productivity and reduce waste compared to human workers. 3D printing could reduce shipping and waste costs. In vitro meat could dramatically improve the efficiency of food production. etc.

I admit that one day we will reach thermodynamic limits to growth, but I see nothing particularly limiting on the horizon. I feel that most of our current limitations stem from socio-political issues (nuclear fear, resistance to change, etc.) rather than technical issues.

By the way, for your Soviet example there is an alternative explanation. Here's some data on what happened afterwards: http://pubs.acs.org/stoken/presspac/presspac/full/10.1021/ef901240p
Russian oil production has dramatically recovered since Soviet times and they are now one of the world's top producers. The Soviet economic crisis and Soviet oil peak are correlated due to their closeness in time, but it is possible that the causation is backwards...the Soviet economic crisis (driven by non-thermodynamic factors) could have caused the Soviet oil industry to tank. It should come as no s

The gentleman who wrote this article complains, "why has it taken nearly 50 years for the contents of this material to be made fully public?" He fails to understand the simplest reason: the public doesn't really care enough. That is to say, some members of the public might care enough to read parts of a translation.

IMO, it's taken as long as it has because the scrolls were anciently written on papyrus or some other cloth or paper and stuffed together for storage. Some were preserved better than others, but still, IIRC, these papyrus and/or whatever-substance fragments can be very difficult to separate ("unroll") and in some cases have been reassembled manually. I am NOT an expert on the DSS. Another factor, of course, is the frequent political turmoil in the Middle East.

Also, as technology to analyze ancient stuck-together papyri has improved, reanalysis would seem to be required for much of the analyzed portions for the analyses to be scientifically valid. FWIW. Also. And. Too. For Chemists and ACS Admirers. For gnostics.

I'm sure you can find many other points of view.

So, where do you think all that Rare Earth Metals and stuff the solar panels comes from? Where do you think the energy to make them comes from? Unicorns and Leprechauns?

The answer is, of course: it depends.

There are various materials that solar cells may be made from, and the environmental impact is bound to differ based on the materials used.

As for the energy required to make the panels, I think we all know that there are various ways to generate electricity. You can get the environmental impact arbitrarily low by using more environmentally friendly sources.

One study found that, using 2004-2006 technology for manufacturing solar cells and the then current mix of energy sources, solar panels reduce harmful air emissions by 89% compared to the current energy mix.

So, to run with that data point (and I know I'm oversimplifying here), if we were to stop doing any more research into better options, and simply convert everything to solar power using technology that is already deployed on a commercial scale, we will kill 89% less unicorns and leprechauns. Yes, we would still harm the environment. But doesn't a reduction by almost a factor 10 sound worth it?

Human genes can be legally patented, according to a Federal Appeals court.

Now, the difference here is that the genes are isolated from the body as a whole, but it seems like we're not too far from being in breach of patent every time we get it on.

Yes, ethanol is not just for drinking, but can also be used as a fuel and chemical reagent. Producing more alcohol resistant yeast is a multimillion (if not billion) dollar industry. There are various ways microorganisms can develop resistance to alcohol. Increase membrane stability (eg increase cholesterol content), increase the ability to cope with oxidation stress (upregulate heat shock proteins, DNA repair enzymes, anti-oxidant producing enzymes), increase the ability to turn alcohol into something less noxious (upregulate alcohol and acetaldehyde dehydrogenase enzymes). We are past the selective breeding stage and now looking at selectively mutating certain genes. This also has applications in the biomedical field in terms of increasing cell survival under oxidizing conditions (e.g. salvage more brain tissue after a stroke).

Here is the abstract by the way:
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/am200324f

The antimicrobial action is hypothesized to be largely physical (disruption of the cell membrane leading to cell death). Barring some relatively significant mutations that greatly change the overall structure of the bacteria, a "resistance" would be relatively unlikely.

Here is the actual article link, since it's busted in the summary:
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/am200324f
or
http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/am200324f

Abstract:

One-Step Photochemical Synthesis of Permanent, Nonleaching, Ultrathin Antimicrobial Coatings for Textiles and Plastics

Antimicrobial copolymers of hydrophobic N-alkyl and benzophenone containing polyethylenimines were synthesized from commercially available linear poly(2-ethyl-2-oxazoline), and covalently attached to surfaces of synthetic polymers, cotton, and modified silicon oxide using mild photo-cross-linking. Specifically, these polymers were applied to polypropylene, poly(vinyl chloride), polyethylene, cotton, and alkyl-coated oxide surfaces using solution casting or spray coating and then covalently cross-linked rendering permanent, nonleaching antimicrobial surfaces. The photochemical grafting of pendant benzophenones allows immobilization to any surface that contains a C–H bond. Incubating the modified materials with either Staphylococcus aureus or Escherichia coli demonstrated that the modified surfaces had substantial antimicrobial capacity against both Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria (>98% microbial death).

In (not only) my opinion he should rather try some weed.

I would bring your attention to graphene nanoribbons and bilayer graphene FETs where scientists have been able to induce a bandgap. nanoribbon, bilayer, bilayer and nanoribbons (the last two are by people from my school, and I know some more papers by them in the pipleline about opening up a gap in graphene).

It might be a while before CNTs or graphene penetrate commercial market. But there is a big reason for that: the inertia of the semiconductor manufacturing industry. A lot of equipment will need to be upgraded and even changed in the foundries. There has to be a huge return on investments for such a major overhaul, e.g., 100's of GHz of operating frequencies (IBM FET), better manufacturability, cheaper raw material (which it is for carbon) and not to mention compatibility with CMOS design and architectures. There's a long way to be trodden, and I wouldn't lose heart at this point just because we've not been able to deliver on CNTs.

It's simply survival of the fittest. At the turn of the century, nanotubes and buckyballs were "cool" academically. Now it's graphene. Though these have been around since 60 years (see the 1947 paper The Band Theory of Graphite ).

I agree that fads are fads, but this is how science will progress from hereon. It used to be a practice of a handful of people in the early days, even towards the first half of the 20th century. Academic research now is a valid career option for a large number of people. Just like any other career, it has certain "return on investments". The ROI's in this case are papers, patents and awards. This IS the yardstick with which your success is measured in the scientific field. It goes to logic people are going to try and stay at the top of their game by going after "modern" and "cutting-edge" topics.

I wouldn't completely agree with your argument of only a few applications remaining. I am not an expert on buckyballs, so I'll refrain from commenting on that, but for Carbon Nanotubes (CNT) there are an insane number of applications already in place. They range from CNT based logic, radio, Atomic force microscopy etc (too many to fit here)

Scientific (or otherwise in the BBC case) media will always glamorize any scientific discovery and exaggerate its potential, as it does for everything else. This is not necessarily an issue with the scientific community who does the research work. If anything, media stories like these end up slapping unreal expectations on scientists and engineers. This ultimately results in a "disappointment" on the public's side when all the proclaimed applications are not realized and electronics industry still runs on Silicon.

Now be careful. The CFC replacements are potent greenhouse gases. Potent as in 3 orders of magnitude worse than CO2. Is it better to die of skin cancer, or of hunger due to crop failures due to draught due to raising global temperature? I don't know...

These frequent "big materials breakthrough" articles really should wait until they've been reviewed in some publication that knows something about the subject, like Chemical Engineering News. The paper, "Agro-waste nanocomposites for automotive applications", presented at the American Chemical Society is available. The claims there aren't as strong as the ones in the press release. Last year, the same author presented "Agro-Wastes Nanocomposites for Medical Application". Wonder what happened to that.

The trouble with many of these "new materials" is that they have some awful flaw. This one, for example, is "biodegradable". That means it rots. That's OK for packaging, but not for parts. Then there are basic questions, like will it tolerate water? Can it be made into thread, sheet, or film? Made at a reasonable cost?

There's been interest in finding useful things to make out of cellulose for the last century. There's so much agricultural waste around, and it would be nice to use it for something. Most of the ideas don't work out, but people keep trying.

You are right, "energy density" is correct. And according to this chart Hydrogen has the highest energy density, by far. Nocera's 2009 JACS article explains that the energy density of batteries seems to have reached a ceiling, due to the fundamental way they store energy by separating charge. Progress on battery technology is only increasing the power density, or the rate at which they can charge and discharge.

Fuel cells indeed are too expensive. Nocera does admit that they are still looking for a cheap fuel cell. In the lecture, he says they may go with combustion when they start selling the initial solar-hydrogen energy system two years from now, until they've found a cheap fuel cell a few more years further down the road.

Again, they have a distinct advantage because they are looking to sacrifice efficiency for cost. The fuel cell they choose does not need to run a car. In other lectures he has said they are looking into past fuel cell research, types that may have been discarded by auto companies because they were not efficient enough to power a car. The one needed for their system only needs to be cheap and robust.

OK, from the actual article (http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/am1010964 ), the researchers made a polymeric coating on glass surfaces. They proved that it can resist 24hrs immersion in water. how does this mean that it is "permanent"?? It could be easily removed by repeated cleaning procedures, which is the major problem with current antifog coatings as well. Secondly, the idea that it will work with ANY plastic surface is ludicrous...since they only made it on glass..I can think of many polymers it is unlikely to work with. But I don't KNOW because I did not try it either!

According to this paper the specific impulse of this new fuel is actually lower than that of LOX and LH, and comparable to other rocket fuels, It is the density impulse which is 20-30% better. This means that the propellant mass wouldn't increase, although making a smaller, denser fuel source would lead to a smaller rocket overall, with mass and cost savings for the structure. Additionally it's lack of Chlorine would make it more environmentally (and worker) friendly than some of the propellant options, which is always nice. Unfortunately that paper doesn't go into production costs, or any possible issues with storing it (This paper looks like it may have more information along those lines, but I don't have a subscription). I don't know if it can sit in a tank at room temperature like Hydrazine, or needs special care like Oxygen (due to its molecular weight I'm guessing the former.) All in all it does seem like a nice stepping stone between the high functionality of LOX LH, and the economy and convenience of some of the other liquid fuels, but it doesn't appear to be a serious game changer in any way.

As far as your suggestion to launch from buildings, mountains, or balloons, that doesn't actually offer substantial benefits either. While launching from high up would result in lower drag losses, that helps less than you'd expect because a ground launched rocket travels through the densest part of the atmosphere at it's slowest speeds. By the time a rocket is going fast enough that drag would really start to slow it down it is already at a pretty high altitude. If you are trying to make a cheaper rocket you really want to increase it's starting speed much more than its height. The math works out this way because of the fact that our starting radius is 6378 km. As big and impressive at Mount Everest seems to us it's really just a tiny pimple compared to the radius of the earth (brings you to 6386 km), and our entire atmosphere isn't much better.

is "would this happen without patents".

I can agree on that. And science studies have shown that progress would "happen" without patents; Promoting Intellectual Discovery: Patents Versus Markets.

Drugs simply won't happen without patents

But, besides the above science link, I totally disagree with this. There are alternatives to pharmaceutical patents. Governments fund drug reseach too. The US's National Institutes of Health's National Cancer Institute spent hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars developing and testing Taxol, a drug used to treat breast and other cancers. The NCI then sold all the exclusive rights to the use of the research for FDA approval to Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS). How much did BMS pay? A fraction of NCI's costs. Add how much money did BMS make? In 2000, BMS bought the rights in 1988-9, BMS made almost $1 Billion. Besides that, answering the question Do drug companies do more marketing or research? is answered as thus: Drug industry spends nearly twice as much on marketing than on research and development. Beyond that, Economists say copyright and patent laws are killing innovation; hurting economy. Thomas Jefferson once said "inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property."

Falcon

Here you go

http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/cen-v058n007.p031

Fermilab pioneers superconductivity scaleup

Clearly, the engineering problems of large-scale superconductivity are formidable. But it seems they are not insurmountable. The first such project is already well under way, providing lessons that likely will prove invaluable in all future attempts. That project is the Tevatron, the 1000-GeV superconducting proton accelerator now under construction at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) in ...

It drives me nuts when the popular media article doesn't include a citation back to the original research. Here's a link to the article on the Nano Letters website: http://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/nl103873a

Kudos for adding a link to the original research article. Not a lot of blogs, news sites, etc. do this. BTW the supporting information to the article is available free of charge (nitty - gritty experimental details). (This is common among paywalled articles)

I'll add that anyone can access the Supporting Information free of charge. It includes several images and figures, and a short video of the procedure.

(rohtua ht4 eht m'I .S.P)

The structures made by block copolymers can be either functional (or a template to make something functional) or used as a mask (like a photoresist) for chemical etching (so it is, in a way, a replacement for a photoresist). In one of the examples from this paper, the block copolymers are used to template the formation platinum nanowires; these could be used either as a functional structure or as a mask allowing one to etch a very fine striped pattern into the surface. The unique feature of using microwaves is that it speeds up the self-organization of the block copolymer, allowing it to realize a minimum energy configuration (i.e. the desired pattern); other methods have generally required a substantial period of time to fully organize. This method manages to complete the organization in under 4 minutes, which is something that the ITRS (published by the Semiconductor Industry Association, see: http://www.itrs.net/ ) has stated is a necessary step for the commercial implementation of block copolymer lithography. The paper, published in ACS Nano, really goes into details. If you /you institution is not a subscriber, you can still access the Supporting Information free of charge which includes dozens of pictures & SEM images and a video.

(rohtua ht4 eht m'i)
(oops... didn't mean to do that last one anon.)

The structures made by block copolymers can be either functional (or a template to make something functional) or used as a mask (like a photoresist) for chemical etching (so it is, in a way, a replacement for a photoresist). In one of the examples from this paper, the block copolymers are used to template the formation platinum nanowires; these could be used either as a functional structure or as a mask allowing one to etch a very fine striped pattern into the surface. The unique feature of using microwaves is that it speeds up the self-organization of the block copolymer, allowing it to realize a minimum energy configuration (i.e. the desired pattern); other methods have generally required a substantial period of time to fully organize. This method manages to complete the organization in under 4 minutes, which is something that the ITRS (published by the Semiconductor Industry Association, see: http://www.itrs.net/ ) has stated is a necessary step for the commercial implementation of block copolymer lithography. The paper, published in ACS Nano, really goes into details. If you /you institution is not a subscriber, you can still access the Supporting Information free of charge which includes dozens of pictures & SEM images and a video.

(rohtua ht4 eht m'i)

Block copolymer self-assembly is an innovative technology capable of patterning technologically relevant substrates with nanoscale precision for a range of applications from integrated circuit fabrication to tissue interfacing, for example. In this article, we demonstrate a microwave-based method of rapidly inducing order in block copolymer structures. The technique involves the usage of a commercial microwave reactor to anneal block copolymer films in the presence of appropriate solvents, and we explore the effect of various parameters over the polymer assembly speed and defect density. The approach is applied to the commonly used poly(styrene)-b-poly(methyl methacrylate) (PS-b-PMMA) and poly(styrene)-b-poly(2-vinylpyridine) (PS-b-P2VP) families of block copolymers, and it is found that the substrate resistivity, solvent environment, and anneal temperature all critically influence the self-assembly process. For selected systems, highly ordered patterns were achieved in less than 3 min. In addition, we establish the compatibility of the technique with directed assembly by graphoepitaxy.

If this is what you mean by monomolecular carbon "balloon", I'd add a note to let people know not to look for them at the next birthday party they attend.

Separating rare earths out of electronics waste is actually not that difficult: hit it with acid; do some basic purification first to get rid of Fe, Cu and a few other "usual suspects"; after that ion exchange chromatography does the deed.

Separating them from other stuff is easy, usually because these elements are very reactive. Separating them from each other is another, much harder task. Actually, using ion exchange chromatography I doubt you can get tonnes of chemically pure metal. You need a lot of fancy chemistry. Actually this is the most polluting part of the industrial process and one of the contributing factors to closing US and European refining plants.

This is similar to how the rest of the body regenerates. In the brain, the glial cells do indeed help guide neuronal connections, and the routing of axon bundles, among other functions.

In the rest of the body a similar structural function is accomplished using "Fibroblasts." These cells "Know" where they are (or where they 'should' be anyway...) in the body, and help guide tissue cells to divide and proliferate properly to repair damaged tissues.

There has been extensive study of fibroblasts in animals concerning limb regeneration; specifically, the mechanisms by which these cells know that they should be in a foot, an arm, or in the spleen--- etc. Several experiments in salamanders have been performed by translocating small colonies of these tissue cells to obscure parts of the animal's body, then stimulating the regeneration process; the results have been... "Interesting."

In humans the "regeneration" process is disrupted by anti-cancer genes that normally engage in tumor suppression, resulting in scar tissue being the primary product of such regeneration (essentially erratic/chaotic tissue replacement). (though with those genes disabled, human tissues in petri dishes have shown more salamander like regeneration, with orderly tissue replacement.)

It is likely that the brain has similar anti-tumor mechanisms to prevent glial cells from going crazy and wrapping neurons up like mummies, or their directing abnormal dendritic synthesis, and that they provide a similar template for neural restructuring that fibroblasts do for body tissue, since they seem to serve this function during embryonic development. This means that abnormal stimulation WOULD result in abnormal tissue growths in the brain if true.

A better approach would be to use biochemistry to temporarily suppress anti-tumor genes, and provide a nutrient rich solution of neuron progenitor cells to the injury site. The risk of neural scarring and the formation of a neurological tumor could be quite high, depending on the size and severity of the injury and the genetic health of the progenitor cells supplied, but you would have a much better chance of "properly" repairing the injury this way as opposed to putting wires in the brain. (which is KNOWN to cause localized neuronal necrosis and scar tissue formation where the wires intersect and interface with the tissue.)

Actual link

I tried to read the paper, but it tried to charge me first. Wasn't it supposed to be the other way round?

http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/nn1018158 That's the corrected link, I believe.

By the way it appears that if you directly access the full paper, you may get a message that "Your current credentials do not allow retrieval of the full text."

To solve this problem try using this redirect link (which is the one found in TFA).

By the way it appears that if you directly access the full paper, you may get a message that "Your current credentials do not allow retrieval of the full text."

To solve this problem try using this redirect link (which is the one found in TFA).

You can also read the actual paper.

What kind of a protocol is hhttp and what kind of a URL is pubsacsorgdoifull101021nn1018158?

Actual link

...but since there's no actual paper available...

Link to the actually available paper: http://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/es903729a

Your French colleagues at the Laboratoire d’nologie et Chimie Applique seem to disagree with you, http://pubs.acs.org/stoken/presspac/presspac/full/10.1021/jf101239w

You know, I've often wondered why we don't join some of our existing technologies together and get on with things. I know it may not be as simple as it sounds, but we have this tech already:

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/feature/id/54170/title/Let_there_be_light
(Allows for manipulation of neurons with light)

http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/nl051811%2B
http://nanotechweb.org/cws/article/tech/41146
(Nanoscale OLED displays)

http://www.egmrs.org/EJS/PDF/vo281/1.pdf
http://www.azonano.com/news.asp?newsID=6802
(Nanoscale light detectors)

http://www.bioone.org/doi/abs/10.2108/zsj.22.535?journalCode=jzoo
http://www.jove.com/index/details.stp?ID=2081
(And we can stain cells with dyes that fluoresce when the cells experience activity now)

We have peanut butter, jelly and bread. Why can't we get this all together to make a sandwich? Or is this currently in the works?
Or am I missing something subtle, that someone who actually knows about this research can enlighten us about?

Why li-ion? New nickel metal hydrides are better than lithium-ion. For example, an A123 18650 cell is 3.3 V * 1.1 amp hours = 3.63 watt*hours. A Sanyo Eneloop NiMH AA is 1.2 * 2.7 amp*hours = 3.24 watt*hours. The Sanyo is a smaller cell by about a factor of 2.14 in volume. So that means that the Sanyo is almost twice as good as the lithium-ion. It's also safer and easier to deal with. That particular model is happy with an hour charge. I'm sure you can find better models that will tolerate a faster charge. Tenergy, for example makes a 15 minute charge AA. That's insane.

Now, for the stations, let's go for vanadium redox and lead-acid, as you mentioned previously. The most exciting, IMO, vanadium redox stuff is this non-membrane based stuff that uses a semi-permeable (I.E. a clay pot) instead of an expensive ion-exchange membrane. Also cool are these membrane-less microfluidic vanadium redox cells. As for lead-acid, I'd say forklift batteries would be the way to go, because they are cheap and often come with longevity guarantees.

Molten salt is another, almost forgotten option. Some membraneless molten salts (not ZEBRAs) will dump over 40 AMPS per square centimeter (aqueous stuff is good if it gives 40 milliamps/cm^2). They might also be made from cheap materials, like magnesium.

Actually no! Check Figure 2 in the original article. Hydrogen and oxygen isotopes are linearly related to each other in natural waters, following the "Global Meteoric Water Line". If you measure delta-2H, you know delta-18O or vice versa.

To be fair, they do attempt to address that, though they do so only in the average case. Actually a big part of the paper is exactly that: an attempt "to assess the links between purchase location and the isotopic composition of beverages" and given that purchase location may not be the same as bottling location, whether or not "these beverages could have a confounding impact on the overall isotopic composition of a consumer’s fluid intake".

Good point re the use of hair to provide a timeline, but if you figure the average human consumes about 1.5 kg of water a day, and contains about 60 kg of water, that means the water has a residence time of about a month and a half. It'll take that long to "flush out" your system.

And the "one degree of freedom" problem still limits the location accuracy of this. Check the map in the original article. The isotopic ratio of water is the same in Florida as in Texas; the same in Boston as in San Francisco. This data can narrow down a person's location, but it'll never provide a unique unambiguous location.

There's some really fascinating research going on with Cellular Automata by Biologists and Chemists. For instance Seeman, Winfree and others have investigated building cellula automata cells directly out of DNA, and encoding the rules of the CA as dangling "sticky ends". This means that as the cells float around in a test tube (or whatever) they have single strands of DNA reaching out into the solution. If two of these strands come together which have complementary bases (they are designed to complement if they represent a valid rule application) then they pair up to form a double strand, which sticks the two cells together. This makes a physical cellular automata, where a spatial dimension is incremented in place of time.

For a non-in-depth video see here http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/paul_rothemund_details_dna_folding.html

For a bit more meat you can see a physical cellular automata made of DNA here http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/nl0722830
and a discussion of the computational power of DNA crystallisation here http://www.dna.caltech.edu/Papers/self-assem.pdf . There is LOADS of cool research on this here http://www.dna.caltech.edu/DNAresearch_publications.html

I'm fascinated by this stuff, and used it as the topic for a University essay that I may as well shamelessly promote here http://chriswarbo.webs.com/DNAEssay.pdf ;)

Additionally, metabolic phenotype (metabotype) differences were observed between autistic and control children, which were associated with perturbations in the relative patterns of urinary mammalian-microbial cometabolites including dimethylamine, hippurate, and phenyacetylglutamine. These biochemical changes are consistent with some of the known abnormalities of gut microbiota found in autistic individuals and the associated gastrointestinal dysfunction and may be of value in monitoring the success of therapeutic interventions. Urinary Metabolic Phenotyping Differentiates Children with Autism from Their Unaffected Siblings and Age-Matched Controls

I'd think that when Journal of proteome Research, a peer reviewed journal publishes that, then the burden of proof is on you. And another point; even though Wakefield was an unscrupulous whore in bed with lawyers and published faked and or exaggerated data for financial gain without regard to his subject's health and welfare, he never recommended that parents not vaccinate their children, but that they be vacinated with single-dose vaccines without thimersol and that MMR be given as seperate vaccines over time rather than as a one time combination vaccine.

Happily my access does cover it (link for anyone else who wants to try).

The statistics look...mediocre. There's enough there, I think, to make it an interesting avenue for research, but it's definitely not a 'urine test for autism' (to be fair, the paper doesn't claim that, the blog and the summary exaggerate it).

What differences there are are pretty minor, and only some of them are apparently significant between the autistic children and their siblings (as opposed to the unrelated controls). I'm not altogether happy that some of the controls are from a different location, although they have found that there is no significant difference between the two control subgroups, but it's still a bit dodgy. They're also using statistical methods I don't know ("Projection to latent structure discriminant analysis"). Finally, I don't see any evidence that they've done corrections for multiple tests, although some of their results are P < 0.001, which would probably withstand that.

All in all, it strikes me as a case of the Science News Cycle.

Disclaimer: I am a biologist, but in a very different field.

The paper appeared in the journal Nano Letters, not to be confused with ACS Nano (although both journals belong to the American Chemical Society). Link: http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/nl100499x

But they are also non-toxic, based on ingredients found in foods, cosmetics, and other consumer products.

If it's killing Anthrax just how non-toxic can it be, hmm? From the original All-Weather Hydrogen Peroxide-Based Decontamination of CBRN Contaminants paper:

A hydrogen peroxide-based decontaminant, Decon Green, is efficacious for the decontamination of chemical agents VX (S-2-(diisopropylamino)ethyl O-ethyl methylphosphonothioate), GD (Soman, pinacolyl methylphosphonofluoridate), and HD (mustard, bis(2-chloroethyl) sulfide); the biological agent anthrax (Bacillus anthracis); and radiological isotopes 137Cs and 60Co; thus demonstrating the ability of this decontamination approach to ameliorate the aftermath of all three types of weapons of mass destruction (WMD). ... Decon Green is an EPA-registered sporicide.

Hydrogen peroxide is considered hazardous because of its highly reactive oxidation ability. It varies around the world a little, but generally in concentrations over 3% it should be accompanied by a Material Safety Data Sheet. In the presence of grease it can even become explosive.

To put its oxidation ability into context... Germany was using hydrogen peroxide to fuel rocket planes towards the end of WW-II. Anyone who had the fuel spilt on them MELTED - and that was just liquid fuel that wasn't burning at the time.

I'd like the person who said this was non-toxic to stand in a bucket of the stuff, without wearing a bio hazard suit, to demonstrate just how non-toxic it is.

Argh. My link disappeared. Full Text Article

http://pubs.acs.org/stoken/presspac/presspac/full/10.1021/ar9001944

Argh. My link disappeared. Full Text Article

http://pubs.acs.org/stoken/presspac/presspac/full/10.1021/ar9001944

Here's the article which I imagine has the recipes and their strength characteristics. Anyone have a subscription to ACS? Otherwise it's $30.

http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/ar9001944

Yes, you are correct. It's fairly likely that Colony Collapse is caused by feeding bees High Fructose Corn Syrup contaminated with hydroxymethylfurfural. Probably what happened was the phone uses a capacitance system to scan the buttons on the front. This scanning results in a high pitched sound that bees can probably hear and are probably annoyed by. Other things might be the phone smelled funny becuase a person had touched it, or the phone circuit board was treated with something toxic to bees. The only true test would be to put a sterile wire right in the hive and pump out 50W of power and see that nothing happens.

The theory of abiotic oil holds that rapidly rising streams of compressed methane gas reach the crust from the mantle, and when they strike pockets of high temperature they condense into heavier hydrocarbons like crude oil.

http://pubs.acs.org/stoken/presspac/presspac/full/10.1021/ef9006017?cookieSet=1

Beef, American beef is maybe second to some Japanese super pricey beef but we have bison here too.

Are you aware American cattle are fed shit. Literally. Manure. You see, they don't completely digest the hay they are given, so on many farms, the cows are fed their own shit. Waste not, want not!

Next, I want you to ask yourself, Where does e. coli come from? That's right! They're feeding you shit too. Fortunately for you, if the shit is cooked long enough, it won't make you sick. So eat that shit with a smile! Best shit in the world!! Think about that next time you order that burger from the dollar menu. :D

How did the shit get there you ask? You've never set foot on a modern day American farm, have you? You should see the barns with the inclined floors. They don't shovel shit, they flush the floors with wastewater. Imagine standing on the beach, having the water rush by your legs, half way up your calves, splashing all over you. Now imagine you're a cow, and the water is filled with shit. Get the picture?

That is just too funny... ROFL. "Best beef in the world." You made my day! ;D

American Chemical Society Press Release

The scientists used a highly-sensitive analytical device called an accelerator mass spectrometer to determine the C-14 levels in the alcohol components of 20 Australian red wines with vintages from 1958 to 1997 and then compared these measurements to the radioactivity levels of known atmospheric samples.

None of the articles I googled actually says if they found any fakes in their sample size of 20.
And as usual with lazy reporting, it seems like most the articles are 95% based on that American Chemical Society press release.