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X Prizes for DNA, Nanotech, Autos, Education
An anonymous reader writes "Larry Page and Craig Venter are now on the X Prize Board of Trustees, and Peter Diamandis, the man behind the $10 million space prize, said new X prizes are in the works for innovations in automobiles, education, nanotech and DNA reseach. Diamandis, from the article: "Why do we still drive cars that use an internal combustion engine and only get 30 miles per gallon? I think that we'll see some amazing achievements in this area." This is in addition to the foundation's incentive to completely decode the DNA of 100 or more people covered earlier on Slashdot."
Now, to "decode" that would mean that it's encrypted somehow, but it's not. It's there in strands in the center of a cell's nucleus. Maybe "extract" would work as a verb, but we're certainly not cracking any encryption. Do I use RSA encryption to protect my genes from you? No. Even if I did, they'd likely only have to crack it once unless everyone used separate public keys.
What it would really mean to decode DNA would be to figure out what the sequence is actually telling us and we are a far far way from that. The sequence reveals the three letter nucleotides and these then reveal many different proteins that form upon folding. We need to find out which are junk, how recombination works, what defines a stop codon, which nucleotides form which proteins, understanding the C-value, etc. Once that happens, then we can start claiming we've decoded something. Please, people, its function is encrypted, not its sequence.
When an X-prize is issued using this wording, it really makes me think twice if they really even know what they want done to win the prize. If you take it literally, that's awfully ambitious. Of course, there's no way to reverse the use of this word as I believe the media has made it a permanent house-hold phrase
My work here is dung.
There actually are such vehicles, however none in serial production.n s_its.html, which is apparently very dead.
For example this one: http://www.greencarcongress.com/2005/04/vw_abando
Maybe an X Prize for the first one to invent a way to get rid of standardized tests?
"how can they call it a MINE if everything here is THEIRS?!?!" -Straight Jacket
"Why do we still drive cars that use an internal combustion engine and only get 30 miles per gallon?"
2 points, 1 question
1. I guess your 30mpg is an average. I know most SUVs don't come close to that.
2. Frankly, I find it amazing that you can take a 1 gallon jug of liquid and slowly burn it and propel yourself and 3000 pounds of vehicle 30 miles. I know there are vehicles that can even do better, but 30 miles is a lonnnnnnnnng way. To be able to do that will 1 gallon of dinosaur juice seems pretty good.
Q1. If the US decided to move to 1 compact New York style location and didn't require the massive amounts of fuel to move bodies from home to work to the mall to the grocery store to school to etc, how would that affect the economy?
Ninjas don't carry tic tacs
Why doesn't ever car have a continuously-variable-transmission (or CVT)? They are more efficient than any manual or automatic transmission because the engine is always operating at peak efficiency. They are simpler than a automatic transmission (have you ever LOOKED at how one of those works?). And you can do 0-60 about 25% faster than with a normal gearbox because you don't need the gear changes and such. Plus, you could probably make 'em smaller than a normal transmission. Lighter too.
Smaller, better gas, more efficient, lighter. So what if they cost a little more right now. What would something like an automatic transmission cost if we didn't have the economies of scale we do for them.
Or just do it like a diesel locomotive. The engine runs all the time at 2000 RPM (or whatever it's ideal spot is). It runs a generator, and that generator powers electric motors that run the wheels. It's more efficient (add in a battery to make things better), it is based on current technology, it removes the need for a transmission (put little motors on each wheel, not one motor to drive everything).
There is a lot we can do. Detroit is too lazy. Why do you think Hybrid cars came out of Japan?
And the Ford Escape Hybrid doesn't count, because they bought the technology from Toyota (or was it Honda?). As far as I know there is no Detroit designed and built hybrid engine on the market. Compare that to 6 years or so of hybrids from Toyota and Honda.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
Have comfortable, easily accessible stops/stations in good locations.
Have a service so frequent that people won't have to think about timetables; have direct connections for the majority of customers, and make connections easy to figure, intuitive as it were: well marked on route maps and timetables, connections should happen on the same platform if at all feasible (i.e. the connecting unit should arrive on the same track or the one across the platform).
Create a simple ticketing scheme that awards frequent travel in the form of seasonal passes or equivalent. If the system is light rail, make use of the fact that it can be routed through a car free zone. If heavy rail, use the speed advantage. In either case, run lines to where people are and where they work, shop, have fun, travel (airports, bus and train terminals...)
Have good connections to existing systems and coordinate schedules, so that people know to take this one to catch that flight.
Ask people what they need. Respond to feedback. Keep developing the system, let it grow with the city; but do take care of stability, so that people know that the train will take the same route tomorrow as it did yesterday.
Why isn't this done? An urban rail system requires a major initial investment, and takes superb management skill to turn a direct profit, and public subsidy is often accepted as a fact of life. (Being located near a good rail service does, however, drive land prices up. This effect can be utilized as a funding tool for the initial investment.) Building a rail service requires either public investment, which communities are reluctant to do, or a public/private partnership, which is still expensive for the public. Parts of the public are against funding any public transport projects, while other parts are strongly in favor. This, along with the question of exactly where the service should go, can fuel decade-long debates before a single rail gets laid. Meanwhile, highways get built and expanded, since people, after all, need to move from A to B.
--js--
Usage: km/h for speed (kilometers per hour); kph for very slow impulses (kilopond hours).
The real question is why there are no electric/solar/revolutionary vehicles anywhere else in the world. They pay $5 gas right? And aren't controlled by Bush and his cronies...
How about... make a solar panel that's more than N% efficient?