Saturday, October 22, 2005
C'MON BABY LIGHT MY TABLE
Accidental Invention Points to End of Light Bulbs
Bjorn Carey
LiveScience Staff Writer
LiveScience.com Fri Oct 21, 5:00 PM ET
The main light source of the future will almost surely not be a bulb. It might be a table, a wall, or even a fork.
An accidental discovery announced this week has taken LED lighting to a new level, suggesting it could soon offer a cheaper, longer-lasting alternative to the traditional light bulb. The miniature breakthrough adds to a growing trend that is likely to eventually make Thomas Edison's bright invention obsolete.
LEDs are already used in traffic lights, flashlights, and architectural lighting. They are flexible and operate less expensively than traditional lighting.
Happy accident
Michael Bowers, a graduate student at Vanderbilt University, was just trying to make really small quantum dots, which are crystals generally only a few nanometers big. That's less than 1/1000th the width of a human hair.
Quantum dots contain anywhere from 100 to 1,000 electrons. They're easily excited bundles of energy, and the smaller they are, the more excited they get. Each dot in Bower's particular batch was exceptionally small, containing only 33 or 34 pairs of atoms.
When you shine a light on quantum dots or apply electricity to them, they react by producing their own light, normally a bright, vibrant color. But when Bowers shined a laser on his batch of dots, something unexpected happened.
"I was surprised when a white glow covered the table," Bowers said. "The quantum dots were supposed to emit blue light, but instead they were giving off a beautiful white glow."
Then Bowers and another student got the idea to stir the dots into polyurethane and coat a blue LED light bulb with the mix. The lumpy bulb wasn't pretty, but it produced white light similar to a regular light bulb.
White light from Bowers' lumpy new bulb. Credit: Vanderbilt University
The new device gives off a warm, yellowish-white light that shines twice as bright and lasts 50 times longer than the standard 60 watt light bulb.
This work is published online in the Oct. 18 edition of the Journal of the American Chemical Society.
Better than bulbs
Until the last decade, LEDs could only produce green, red, and yellow light, which limited their use. Then came blue LEDs, which have since been altered to emit white light with a light-blue hue.
LEDs produce twice as much light as a regular 60 watt bulb and burn for over 50,000 hours. The
Department of Energy estimates LED lighting could reduce U.S. energy consumption for lighting by 29 percent by 2025. LEDs don't emit heat, so they're also more energy efficient. And they're much harder to break.
Other scientists have said they expect LEDs to eventually replace standard incandescent bulbs as well as fluorescent and sodium vapor lights.
If the new process can be developed into commercial production, light won't come just from newfangled bulbs. Quantum dot mixtures could be painted on just about anything and electrically excited to produce a rainbow of colors, including white.
One big question remains: When a brilliant idea pops into your mind in the future, what will appear over your head?Friday, October 21, 2005
BUSHCO HAS RUINED THIS NATION
Colonel Finally Saw Whites of Their Eyes
By Dana Milbank, Washington Post
Thursday, October 20, 2005; Page A04
As Colin Powell's right-hand man at the State Department, Larry Wilkerson seethed quietly during President Bush's first term. Yesterday, Colonel Wilkerson made up for lost time.
He said the vice president and the secretary of defense created a "Cheney-Rumsfeld cabal" that hijacked U.S. foreign policy. He said of former defense undersecretary Douglas Feith: "Seldom in my life have I met a dumber man." Addressing scholars, journalists and others at the New America Foundation, Wilkerson accused Bush of "cowboyism" and said he had viewed Condoleezza Rice as "extremely weak." Of American diplomacy, he fretted, "I'm not sure the State Department even exists anymore."
And how about Karen Hughes's efforts to boost the country's image abroad? "It's hard to sell [manure]," Wilkerson said, quoting an Egyptian friend.
The man who was chief of staff at the State Department until early this year continued: "If you're unilaterally declaring Kyoto dead, if you're declaring the Geneva Conventions not operative, if you're doing a host of things that the world doesn't agree with you on and you're doing it blatantly and in their face, without grace, then you've got to pay the consequences."
With Bush's approval ratings dropping below 40 percent, the administration's vaunted loyalty and party discipline are suffering. David Frum, a former White House speechwriter, is campaigning against confirmation of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court. Bruce Bartlett, who worked for the president's father, was fired by his think tank this week because he is publishing a book titled "Impostor: How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy."
And, on Capitol Hill yesterday, Republicans joined in criticizing the administration about Iraq. When Rice said at a hearing that "we have made significant progress" in Iraq, Sen. Lincoln D. Chafee (R.I.) replied: "Well, we all wish that were true, but we can't kid ourselves, either."
Wilkerson adds a new dimension to the criticism. A 31-year military veteran and former director of the Marine Corps War College, he worked for Powell in the public and private sectors for much of the past 16 years, and he was often described by colleagues as the man who would say what Powell was thinking but was too discreet to say.
Wilkerson's beef with the administration was, for the most part, not ideological. He argues that U.S. forces must remain in Iraq, and he describes George H.W. Bush as "one of the finest presidents we've ever had."
Rather, the colonel objected to the administration's secrecy, which allowed Cheney, Rumsfeld and others to subvert the foreign policy apparatus that has been in place since 1947.
"What I saw was a cabal between the vice president of the United States, Richard Cheney, and the secretary of defense, Donald Rumsfeld," he said. By cutting out the bureaucracy that had to carry out those decisions, "we have courted disaster in Iraq, in North Korea, in Iran, and generally with regard to domestic crises like Katrina." If there is a nuclear terrorist attack or a major pandemic, Wilkerson continued, "you are going to see the ineptitude of this government in a way that'll take you back to the Declaration of Independence."
Wilkerson, part military man and part academic, said "hell" a lot but also used words such as "desultory" and "titular." Peering from large wire-rimmed glasses, armed with a flag lapel pin, he spoke with barely restrained anger. He had given critical quotes about the administration before, but yesterday's New America Foundation speech was his coming out as an administration critic.
He had barbs for lawmakers ("truly abandoned their oversight responsibilities") and said past presidents had also circumvented the national security structure. But, he said, "the case that I saw for four-plus years was a case I have never seen in my studies of aberrations, bastardizations, perturbations, changes to the national security decision-making process."
Wilkerson blamed Bush, "not versed in international relations and not too much interested," for letting the Cheney-Rumsfeld cabal to take over. He blamed Rice for dropping her role as honest broker to "build her intimacy with the president." And he blamed whoever gave Feith "carte blanche to tell the State Department to go screw itself."
The cabal's end run around the bureaucracy, he argued, stalled nuclear diplomacy with North Korea and Iran. He said top officials "condoned" prisoner abuse and left the Army "truly in bad shape."
"You and I and every other citizen like us is paying the consequences," he said, "whether it was a response to Katrina that was less than adequate certainly, or the situation in Iraq which still goes unexplained."
The colonel said his old boss is not pleased with his decision to go public with his criticism. Powell, he said, "is the world's most loyal soldier." Wilkerson said he admired that, but he took a different view of loyalty: not to the administration, but to the country.Thursday, October 20, 2005
CUT IT DOWN FASTER, BOYS, WE NEED MORE PASTURELANDS
Rain-Forest Damage Much Worse Than Thought
WASHINGTON, Associated Press - Loss of trees in the Brazilian rain forest is much worse than had been thought, according to a new study. Losses in clear-cut areas where all trees are removed have been monitored by satellite observations, but those were not able to detect the cutting of individual trees in areas where others are left behind.
Now, a more detailed satellite observation system is able to detect selective logging, and the findings show much more widespread timber harvests than had been thought, according to a report in Friday's issue of the journal Science.
Annually, selective logging disturbs an area totaling about the size of Connecticut, according to lead author Gregory Asner of the Carnegie Institution of Washington and Stanford University.
"Selective logging negatively impacts many plants and animals and increases erosion and fires. Additionally, up to 25 percent more carbon dioxide is released to the atmosphere each year, above that from deforestation, from the decomposition of what the loggers leave behind," Asner said in a statement.
Illegal logging was even discovered in some protected national reserves, parks and indigenous lands, the researchers found.
"We expected to see large areas of logging, but the extent to which logging penetrates deep into the frontier is much more dramatic than we anticipated," said co-author Michael Keller of the U.S. Forest Service.
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On the Net:
Science: http://www.sciencemag.orgThursday, October 20, 2005
ITS A BUSHIT 'WAR'
Concerns Over Iraq Growing on Homefront
MEDIA, Pa. Associated Press - Bob Simpson dips his brush in a jar of black paint and starts scrawling two numbers on a sign he hangs outside his home — totals for U.S. soldiers killed and wounded in
Iraq.
"The reason I do this is it reminds people of what's going on so they don't forget," the nursing home worker says as cars zip past the grim tote board he updates every few days.
Simpson, 50, is a Navy veteran and a Republican opposed to the war in Iraq, one of a growing number of people who believe President Bush made the wrong decision to attack Saddam Hussein and then bungled the occupation.
Recent polling by The Associated Press-Ipsos shows sharp declines in support for the war and for Bush's performance as commander in chief since his re-election a year ago. Some of the steepest declines are among evangelicals, Southerners, white men and other critical cogs of the GOP coalition.
As the U.S. death toll climbed toward 2,000, AP reporters interviewed people in nine politically divided communities to examine the public's mood and gauge how the war could affect next year's congressional elections.
This is an anxious homefront. Whether for or against the war, people say Iraq is part of an odious mix of events weighing down their spirits.
Rising gas prices, the government's slow-footed response to Hurricane Katrina, a spate of political scandals, job losses, pension forfeitures and inflation — all these and more contribute to the malaise.
It's no wonder that nearly two-thirds of people tell pollsters the country is headed in the wrong direction.
"We're in a funk," says Connie Paolino, 50, a shop owner in this Philadelphia suburb who voted for Bush but now wonders about his stewardship in Iraq. "The fact that our boys are dying doesn't help things."
___
Kneeling over a shingle painted white to cover the outdated count, Simpson carefully brushes a black "1,9" while bemoaning what he sees as a lack of attention given to the war. He says he's neither an activist nor a partisan — just a guy paying homage to the troops — though he did change his registration from Republican to Democrat last year because of concerns about the war.
"As soon as it's out of the news, people don't give it much thought," he says. "Whatever the current problem is, that's what people are thinking about. Like we just got through Katrina. Now with the earthquake ... people are watching that on the news and you'll see the war in Iraq getting thrown on the back burner."
He starts to paint a "7."
___
Will the growing discontent spill over to the 2006 elections? Most people don't think it will affect their votes for Congress — at least not yet.
AP reporters conducted interviews in competitive districts in Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, New Mexico, Pennsylvania and South Dakota. They generally fell into three categories:
• Partisans whose say their votes will not be affected.
• Moderates who say they may be less inclined to back Republicans, though most had kind words for their own representatives.
• Those who cited the war as yet another reason to dislike major-party politics, or those who worried about the direction of the nation.
"Nobody looks good with this mess," said Jim Stevens, 43, of Malvern, Pa.
In this suburban district southwest of Philadelphia, war and politics intersect. Republican Rep. Curt Weldon (news, bio, voting record), vice chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, has been a popular lawmaker for two decades, but now faces a challenge from a political newcomer, Democrat Bryan Lentz, an Iraq war veteran.
Staunch anti-war Democrats like Debbie Krull, a local council member in Weldon's district, give the incumbent the edge. "He will be tough to beat," she says.
Still, Republicans are worried judging by the growing number of GOP candidates across the country who are distancing themselves from the president and the war. Weldon is one. He mentions Iraq and Vietnam in the same breath, and accuses the Bush administration of misleading the public about progress.
"The American people are saying, 'Hey, their credibility is no good here,'" Weldon says.
___
Republican Jack McAvoy is choking back tears, his eyes swollen and red.
"We were lied to by the president and his administration," says the 51-year-old convenience store manager. "I'm angry."
Over breakfast at the Court Diner a few blocks from Simpson's home, McAvoy explains that he is a Vietnam-era veteran who fears history is repeating itself in Iraq.
"It's Vietnam all over again, less the jungle," he says.
Is that why he's so emotional?
"I lost an uncle in Vietnam," McAvoy replies.
He accepts condolences and stares into his coffee. And stares. Finally, the awkward silence is broken when he coughs up another memory of Vietnam. "My brother was sent home in a casket."
Only four in 10 suburban men approve of Bush's handling of Iraq, according to AP-Ipsos polling. A year ago, Bush's rating was 55 percent among suburban men.
"I don't think we went about it right," says Richard Blackburn, 66, of Wheat Ridge, Colo., whose support for the war is waning.
Seven in 10 suburban men thought going to war was a good idea in December 2003. Now, less than half do.
"It hasn't been worth it," says John Brees, a self-described conservative from Iowa.
___
Simpson is bald, with a neatly trimmed red beard speckled with gray. He talks in a soothing monotone, like the nightshift nurse he is.
Brush in hand, he paints the last digit on the first set of numbers — "1,970."
"That's the death toll right now. Now, I'm doing the wounded, which is 14,362," Simpson. His eyes trained on the sign, Simpson pauses before he adds, "They're coming back with missing limbs."
That was last week, and the totals have continued to rise.
___
Many people are frustrated, not just by the bloodshed but by a sense of helplessness.
Victory seems elusive. Defeat is unthinkable in a time of terror. Withdraw U.S. troops? Even some of the president's harshest critics are reluctant to advocate that.
"It's like we're stuck and we can't move," says Jina Hopkins, 21, an Albuquerque, N.M., fragrance sales clerk. She supported the war at first. "But now that everybody has died. ..."
Pat Kinnane, 49, a laid-off baggage supervisor from suburban Chicago, stopped supporting the war when weapons of mass destruction didn't turn up.
"It's a war I don't think that we can win," Kinnane says.
She and other suburban women rallied behind Bush after the Sept. 11 attacks but gradually saw Iraq as a threat to their sons and daughters. The number of suburban women approving of Bush's handling of Iraq has dropped 14 percentage points since November 2004 and a whopping 26 points since May 2004.
Colleen Kutek, a 32-year-old Medicaid case manager from suburban Denver, had favored the war but now considers it a waste. "It hasn't done anything. It hasn't proven anything. It hasn't helped America at all," she says.
Angie Sanchez, a 23-year-old bagel shop manager from Jasper, Ind., said she has a number of friends who served in Iraq.
"I felt that Bush kind of twisted the truth and made it into something it was not," she says.
___
Pulling back the slide of a .45-caliber semiautomatic pistol, William Crawford, a gun store manager in Albuquerque, says to list him as a war supporter.
"Whether we should be there or shouldn't be there is not a decision for any of us to make," he says. "We are there, so we should support whatever our government or troops are doing, and in that region of the world a free and independent country would not be a bad thing."
However, even some pro-war people question Bush's performance, accusing him of using too few troops.
"He wants to half-bake this situation," groused Harry Friel, 35, at the pizza-and-beer shop he helps run in Malvern, Pa.
Five Pennsylvania National Guard soldiers were killed in a roadside bombing in September, pushing the state's death toll above 100. California (214) and Texas (172) have the highest death tolls, in a recent count.
The war has touched every community, especially with the National Guard and Reserve suffering a strikingly higher share of casualties. "Weekend warriors" have accounted for one-quarter of all U.S. deaths since the war began, and the percentage has been rising.
Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell says he calls victims' families soon after they get the news.
"You can see in their eyes and hear in their voices (questions about) whether there's value to the loss they've sustained," the Democrat says.
___
In a cold drizzle, Simpson attaches the newly painted shingles to the sign that hangs on his backyard fence. "Support our Troops. USA" reads the sign with the fresh set of grim numbers: 1,970 dead and 14,362 injured — and climbing.
He talks about plans to add another flag and a few flourishes when the death toll hits 2,000.
"It's not that I have a cause. ... I'm just trying to make people remember that they shouldn't forget the war," he says as a truck rattles past. "Don't forget the troops. The troops are what I'm concerned about.
"Nothing we can do about the war now."Wednesday, October 19, 2005
WHOA WILMA!
Wilma Sets Barometric Pressure Record
MIAMI, Associated Press - Hurricane Wilma doesn't stop making history: It is the strongest, most intense Atlantic hurricane in terms of barometric pressure and the most rapidly strengthening on record.
A hurricane hunter plane flying through the Category 5 storm's eye found a minimum central pressure of 882 millibars, National Hurricane Center forecasters said Wednesday.
That is lower than the 888 millibars recorded in Hurricane Gilbert in 1988. The lowest pressure at landfall on record is 892 millibars in the 1935 Labor Day hurricane in the Florida Keys, which was blamed for more than 400 deaths.
Pressure is often used to compare hurricanes throughout history because there are usually more accurate measurements. Wind gauges are often damaged or destroyed by powerful hurricanes.
Wilma's top sustained winds were measured early Wednesday at 175 mph, the same as Rita and Katrina when they were at sea and 105 mph faster than the wind speed measured 24 hours before when it was a tropical storm. That wind speed increase is the fastest ever recorded, hurricane meteorologist Hugh Cobb said.
Hurricanes Camille (1969) and Allen (1980) were estimated to have winds of 190 mph, the highest ever recorded, but those readings are suspect because of problems with wind gauges, forecasters said.
A hurricane's winds are blown because higher-pressure air rushes toward the lower-pressure eye to equalize the difference. Typically, the lower the pressure, the faster the air speeds in. But because the pressure around each storm is different, lower pressure doesn't always correspond to a specific wind speed.
Wilma dropped from 982 millibars to 882 millibars in 24 hours, or a rate of 4.2 millibars an hour. Gilbert dropped at 3 millibars an hour over 24 hours. Wilma also fell 9.7 millibars an hour over six hours early Wednesday, beating Hurricane Beulah's drop of 6.3 millibars an hour in six hours in 1967.
The lowest pressure ever recorded in a tropical cyclone was 870 millibars in Typhoon Tip in the northwest Pacific Ocean in 1979.
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On the Net:
http://www.nhc.noaa.govMonday, October 17, 2005
WILMAAAAAAAA!!
Tropical Storm Wilma Forms in Caribbean
MIAMI, Associated Press - Tropical Storm Wilma strengthened Monday after forming in the northwestern Caribbean, tying the record for the most named storms in an Atlantic season and following a path that some forecasters believe could menace the Gulf Coast next week as a hurricane.
Wilma is the 21st named storm of the season. The only other time that many storms have formed since record keeping began 154 years ago was in 1933.
At 11 a.m. EDT, Wilma had top sustained wind near 45 mph, up 5 mph from earlier in the day, the
National Hurricane Center said. It was centered about 220 miles south-southeast of Grand Cayman and drifting southwest near 5 mph, but was expected to turn toward the west within the next day.
A tropical storm warning, meaning tropical storm conditions are expected within 24 hours, was posted for the coast of Honduras. Over the weekend, a hurricane watch, meaning hurricane conditions could be felt in 36 hours, and tropical storm warning were posted in the Cayman Islands.
The storm is expected to bring 4 to 6 inches of rain in the Cayman Islands and Jamaica, with as much as 12 inches possible in some areas, hurricane center forecasters said. In Honduras, rainfall of up 10 inches was possible in some areas.
Long-term forecasts show the storm heading into the Gulf of Mexico by the weekend. Forecasters said high water temperatures and other conditions were favorable for it to become a significant hurricane.
But hurricane specialist Stacy Stewart said Wilma had shifted west of its previous path and could hit Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula. "At this time it doesn't appear it will be a major threat to the United States during the next five days," Stewart said.
Wilma is then expected to re-emerge into the Gulf and could become a threat to the southern U.S.
"Usually when a storm gets into the Gulf, it's going to hit somewhere," said hurricane center meteorologist Larry Lahiff. "Where, that's too early to tell right now. Some models take it west, some take it north."
The U.S. Gulf Coast was already battered this year by Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Dennis.
Since 1995, the Atlantic has been in a period of higher hurricane activity. Scientists say the cause of the increase is a rise in ocean temperatures and a decrease in the amount of disruptive vertical wind shear that rips hurricanes apart. Some researchers argue that global warming fueled by man's generation of greenhouse gases is the culprit.
Forecasters at the hurricane center say the busy seasons are part of a natural cycle that can last for at least 20 years, and sometimes up to 40 or 50. They say the conditions are similar to those when the Atlantic was last in a period of high activity in the 1950s and 60s.
The six-month hurricane season ends Nov. 30. Wilma is the last on the list of storm names for 2005; there are 21 names on the yearly list because the letters q, u, x, y and z are skipped. If any other storms form, letters from the Greek alphabet would be used, starting with Alpha. That has never happened in roughly 60 years of regularly named Atlantic storms.
National Hurricane Center: http://www.nhc.noaa.gov