Cornell-Technion University Bid Wins Right to Build Applied Science Campus

After Stanford dropped out, it was almost a given that Cornell University and Technion University of Israel would win with their joint bid. The news is now official. They will get to build the campus on Roosevelt Island. That bid is helped by a $350 million gift for building the campus and that Cornell was looking to have academic programs up and running as early as next year as the campus was being built out.

The announcement, to take place at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center on the Upper East Side, according to people briefed on the plan, will come three days after Stanford pulled out of the contest, and Cornell announced a $350 million gift, the largest in its history, to help bankroll its proposal.

Speaking on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk about the matter publicly, those briefed said that Cornell had long before emerged as the front-runner. “It was already very much along the way to this result,” one said.

Still, they said, the mayor may not have ruled out the possibility of anointing two winners: the other contenders are Columbia University, a consortium led by New York University, and Carnegie Mellon.

Cornell proposed a campus with 2.1 million square feet of building space at a cost of more than $2 billion, accommodating more than 2,000 students, with classrooms, laboratories, housing and a conference center, among other facilities. The project, to be built over a generation, would include a range of unusual environmental features, like heavy use of solar energy and geothermal wells.

City officials had originally planned to choose a winner by year’s end. But after seeing the voluminous proposals submitted on Oct. 28, they warned not to expect an announcement until January, so the timing of Monday’s announcement was a bit of a surprise.

Yet Cornell is in a hurry: it has promised to have classes running by next September, a year ahead of the date the city had requested.

“There’s a lot of work to do, and a real desire to get things rolling in the time the mayor has left in office,” one person briefed on the plan said.

The city is providing the land on Roosevelt Island, currently occupied by a little-used hospital, as well as $100 million in infrastructure improvements to ease building.

Cornell University's Bid To Develop Tech Campus On Roosevelt Island Just Improved

Earlier this year, New York City promoted an effort to redevelop a portion of Roosevelt Island as a tech campus/incubator for tech firms. Several major universities submitted bids, including Cornell University and Stanford. The Cornell bid was a joint effort between Cornell and Israel's Technion University.

Stanford has dropped out of the running.

The university and its Board of Trustees "have determined that it would not be in the best interests of the university to continue to pursue the opportunity," according to a press release from Stanford that just landed in the Curbed inbox. Stanford had submitted a 600-page proposal for a $2.5 billion, 10-acre campus (rendered at right) housing 200 faculty and 2,000 students that would open in 2016 and take 30 years to develop. But apparently "the university could not be certain that it could proceed in a way that ensured the success of the campus" and so decided to withdraw.

This decidedly improves the chances that the Cornell bid wins. I don't give Columbia University's bid much of a chance, since the university has been busy trying to expand its campus in Washington Heights and needs to devote its resources there; a Roosevelt Island campus would be a distraction to the efforts already underway.

Computerized Pathology May Lead To Cancer Diagnosis/Treatment Breakthroughs

Scientists have been working to create computer programs that can help identify and catalog cancers, which involve abnormalities in various kinds of cells in the human body. After researchers taught the program how to identify cancer cells among the slides, they found that the program not only correctly identified cancer cells, but that characteristics of the cancer cells and those of surrounding cells were important to identifying prognosis for recovery.

Once it was trained, Beck et al. used C-Path to evaluate tissues of cancer patients it had not examined before. Again, the researchers already knew the outcome, so they were able to check C-Path’s success rate. Its results were a statistically significant improvement over human-based examination, the authors say.

C-Path even figured out something pathologists haven’t — that the characteristics of the cancer cells and the surrounding cells were both important in determining a patient’s outcome. “Through machine learning, we are coming to think of cancer more holistically, as a complex system rather than as a bunch of bad cells in a tumor,” said Dr. Matt van de Rijn, a professor of pathology and co-author of the study, in a statement. “The computers are pointing us to what is significant, not the other way around.”

This is an impressive result, as Rimm explains it, because existing pathological analysis is a very subjective science. Experts make judgments about tissue metastasis and a patient’s overall chances of survival by simply looking at tissue, and their own diagnoses can vary widely, as a 2008 study showed. But a computer model using thousands of times more criteria could be much more consistent.

Despite this success, C-Path is still a long way from clinical use, the authors say.

Faster please.

Guru of Sports Medicine Finds MRIs Vastly Overused

If you want to find a reason for the high costs for health care, look no further than the overuse of MRIs, says Dr. James Andrews, the doctor who revolutionized sports medicine.

He did a study where he looked at MRI scans of healthy athletes, and found that the scans picked up abnormalities nearly all the time.

“An M.R.I. is unlike any other imaging tool we use,” Dr. Sangeorzan said. “It is a very sensitive tool, but it is not very specific. That’s the problem.” And scans almost always find something abnormal, although most abnormalities are of no consequence.

“It is very rare for an M.R.I. to come back with the words ‘normal study,’ “ said Dr. Christopher DiGiovanni, a professor of orthopedics and a sports medicine specialist at Brown University. “I can’t tell you the last time I’ve seen it.”

In sports medicine, where injuries are typically torn muscles or tendons or narrow cracks in bones, specialists like Dr. Andrews and Dr. DiGiovanni say M.R.I.’s often are not needed — they usually can figure out what is wrong with just a careful medical history, a physical exam and, sometimes, a simple X-ray.

M.R.I.’s are not the only scans that are overused in medicine but, in sports medicine, where many injuries involve soft tissues like muscles and tendons, they rise to the fore.

In fact, one prominent orthopedist, Dr. Sigvard T. Hansen, Jr., a professor of orthopedics and sports medicine at the University of Washington, says he pretty much spurns such scans altogether because they so rarely provide useful information about the patients he sees — those with injuries to the foot and ankle.

“I see 300 or 400 new patients a year,” Dr. Hansen says. “Out of them, there might be one that has something confusing and might need a scan.”

The price, which medical facilities are reluctant to reveal, depends on where the scan is done and what is being scanned. One academic medical center charges $1,721 for an M.R.I. of the knee to look for a torn ligament. The doctor who interprets the scan gets $244. Doctors who own their own M.R.I. machines — and many do — can pocket both fees. Insurers pay less than the charges — an average of $150 to the doctor and $960 to the facility.

MRI machines are a profit center for doctors and those operating the scanners. The machines, which can cost upwards of $250,000 a piece, have utility for certain kinds of illnesses and injuries, but are being overused. When an individual scan can cost $1,000 or more - these costs add up over time.

Indeed, the news report highlights the need for doctors to take a careful and detailed personal history and physical examination rather than relying on scans alone. In one instance, several doctors claimed that a patient had a torn ACL, but if they took a detailed history, they would have known that the patient continued skiing after the apparent injury, which is something that would not have been possible had the ACL truly been torn. It turns out that the patient had a broken bone in his leg.

And patients and defensive medicine plays a significant role in why these MRI scans are being ordered:

Dr. DiGiovanni did a similar study with foot and ankle patients, looking back at 221 consecutive patients over a three-month period, 201 of whom did not have fractures. More than 15 percent arrived with M.R.I.’s obtained by doctors they had seen before coming to Dr. DiGiovanni. Nearly 90 percent of those scans were unnecessary and half had interpretations that either made no difference to the patient’s diagnosis or were at odds with the diagnosis.

“Patients often feel like they are getting better care if people are ordering fancy tests, and there are some patients who come in demanding an M.R.I. — that’s part of the problem,” he said.

Some doctors might also feel they are providing better care if they order the scans, Dr. DiGiovanni said, and doctors often feel that they risk malpractice charges if they fail to scan a patient and then miss a diagnosis.

This is exhibit A as to why health costs are soaring.

New York City Edges Closer To Picking Team To Build New Applied Science Campus on Roosevelt Island

There's a huge contest to build a new education campus on Roosevelt Island - that would spur serious economic development and new r&d opportunities because of the focus on technology and engineering (applied sciences campus). Big money is involved, and so are big name research universities.

It's down to really 2 serious offers. One is from Stamford, the other from Cornell. I'm liking the Cornell group's chances, and that's not only because Cornell's group includes Technion U from Israel. Technion's graduates have gone on to great success internationally - half the Israel companies on the NASDAQ are headed by Technion alumni. There's tremendous entrepreneurial spirit there; and teamed up with Silicon Alley, it could lead to expanded economic opportunties throughout NYC and the region.

Roosevelt Island was picked because it had the space necessary for a new campus (Governor's Island was another option but had less transportation infrastructure available to make this happen anytime soon).

The Sweet Science of Bioremediation

Bioremediation of contaminated land is something of a holy grail for scientists and environmentalists since it utilizes natural processes to cleanse soils and groundwater of contamination. It can be done either in place, or with a mechanical removal of soil for treatment off-site.

Some cleanups in New Jersey are using molasses to enhance the bioremediation. That can speed up the cleanup and restore lands much more quickly than other cleanup methods.

In a relatively new process called enhanced anaerobic bioremediation, the diluted molasses provides a food source for microbes that occur naturally in the soil. The microbes multiply, then use the solvents the way humans use oxygen, breaking them down into non-toxic byproducts, such as carbon dioxide.

International Molasses now ships its syrup to cleanup sites in New Jersey and several other states.

"A few years ago we started seeing a lot of growth in this area," said Eric Lushing, vice president of Malt Products Corp. and its subsidiary, International Molasses Corp., which supplies molasses to the Kearfott site.

"The molasses we produce is food grade, which is not true of a lot of refineries, which make it below food grade," Lushing said. That makes their product more appealing to cleanup experts, since food grade molasses does not contain other chemicals that might exacerbate a contaminated site's issues, he said.

The companies' molasses and malt products are more typically sold to food manufacturers that make cookies, snack foods, breakfast cereals, candy and peanut butter.

International Molasses Corp. began in 1957 as a regional supplier of malts and has grown internationally. It has manufacturing plants in Maywood as well as in Canada, Great Britain and the Netherlands. The company also has a product called Eco-Molasses, a byproduct of sugar refining that is sold to golf courses and other facilities for lawn maintenance. Eco-Molasses is touted as a product that improves leaf color and plant health, decreases thatch, and increases microbial activity in the soil.

'99 percent' clean

"We're hoping that within two years this process will bring the contaminants down to an acceptable standard," said Mo Mohiuddin, project manager with Arcadis, the contractor hired to clean up the Kearfott site. "We won't get every molecule of contamination but we should be able to hit 99 percent of the mess."

Anaerobic bioremediation is a growing strategy for contamination cleanup experts. It has been used at hundreds of sites nationwide, including Air Force bases from Oklahoma to California.

If it can be made significantly cheaper, that would further spur cleanups.

Repercussions Persist From China's High Speed Rail Crash

Victims of the high speed rail crash that killed 40 people and injured over 190 people are caught up in the unending bureaucratic and governmental nightmare. The railway "company" is the worst of a for-profit entity and a state-run and operated entity, with no oversight and accountability. Moreover, the rail company is essentially investigating itself and isn't likely to find fault where fault truly lies precisely because the company knows that its long range plans call for the export of high speed rail technology.

Add to that the fact that railway personnel were more interested in restoring service as quickly as possible and sought to bury damaged equipment rather either search for victims and survivor or carry out a thorough investigation.

Mr. Chen said he lost roughly $6,000 in cash and other belongings in the accident. The railways ministry paid him a mere $35.

He asked to be transferred from a Wenzhou hospital to a better hospital in the city of Fuzhou, his hometown. Instead, the ministry moved him to an old-age home, where he receives no medical treatment, despite continuing lung trouble, back pain and other ailments due to his injuries.

“I want to cry, but I have no tears left,” he said. “Our family has already lost someone in this accident. How can they treat us like this? I am being tortured both physically and mentally.”

Almost two months after the high-speed rail crash killed 40 people and injured 191 others, a government investigative panel is readying a report on the disaster, expected to be released this month. But the injured and the survivors of the dead say they have already reached their own conclusions. They say the railways ministry, which has a long history of corruption, skimped on safety, bungled the rescue effort, tried to hide the extent of its failings and showed a callous disregard for victims.

“They are their own little nation,” said Pasquale Liguori, who lost his daughter, a foreign-language student from Naples, Italy, who was on her first visit to China with her boyfriend. “The China Railways Ministry killed my daughter, and they want to hide everything that happened. It is revolting.”

The ministry has said it upholds high safety standards, did not prematurely end the rescue and is participating in a transparent investigation.

The ministry is indeed a fief, a holdover from the era when the state controlled all. With two million workers, it is perhaps the world’s fourth-largest employer, behind Wal-Mart. Its work force matches that of the entire United States federal government, excluding military and postal workers.

It owns the railways it regulates, a built-in conflict that critics say encourages corruption, endangers safety in the name of profit and hinders accountability. Its safety data are not publicly released. It runs its own court system and, until recently, its own police force.

The government has for over a decade discussed dividing the ministry’s business and regulatory functions, as it did years ago with the civil aviation industry. But using its clout as the nation’s mover of coal — and now, as the developer of high-speed rail into one of China’s technological and industrial crown jewels — the rail ministry has adroitly fended off reform.

“The ministry is a monster, half government agency, half for-profit company,” said Zhang Kai, a Beijing lawyer who has faced off against the ministry. “It can choose to behave like either one.”

It is not unusual for victims of government mishaps in China to find themselves isolated and helpless. Chinese authorities typically minimize events that suggest government incompetence lest they encourage social unrest.

But as crash victims and others tell it, the bureaucracy’s handling of the crash is a case in itself. Chinese officials have already declared that the disaster was preventable, caused by human error and poorly designed signal equipment. Now the ministry faces a dilemma: if the government’s investigation does not appear credible, it could hurt the ministry’s chances to export high-speed rail equipment and technology. But any admission of systemic flaws might also scare away customers.

Foreign entities looking for high speed rail want to see a detailed investigation, but they don't want to purchase from an entity that is rife with all kinds of technological shortfalls; it's a conundrum for the company and it seems that rather than come clean with its faults, it's going to shift blame where possible.

SUNY Albany's Nanotech Center Building Next Generation Semiconductor Facility

SUNY Albany has been working on nanotechnology for the better part of the past 20 years, and has been a major center for research as part of the Sematech consortium. The facility is undergoing a major expansion that would double the space for clean rooms and production facilities to test new technology.

The focus of the new technology is to increase the size of the silicon wafers used in semiconductors from the now standard 12 inch (300mm) wafer to an 18 inch (450mm) design that would reduce production costs significantly. This is the kind of advance that has application potential not only for semiconductors, but for solar power cells:

Renderings and other documents obtained by the Times Union show a dramatic, 500,000-square-foot structure that will nearly double the size of the existing College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering campus. The project, to be built in two phases, is rising opposite Washington Avenue Extension from the existing campus.

Officials from Sematech, the computer chip research consortium headquartered at the NanoCollege, have touted the expansion to insiders in recent months, describing the effort to move the industry from making chips on 12-inch, or 300 millimeter silicon wafers, to 18-inch, or 450 millimeter wafers.

The move could revolutionize the way chips are made by drastically reducing costs while increasing output.

A small-scale 450mm research program has been operated by the International Sematech Manufacturing Initiative, a Sematech program that has received millions of dollars in state funding. NanoCollege officials called it a "limited seed program" only two months ago.

But presentations made at semiconductor conferences around the world by Sematech CEO Dan Armbrust and Paolo Gargini, director of technology strategy at chip giant Intel Corp., show that the 450mm program is poised to grow significantly here.

The focal point is a 45,000-square-foot clean room being built as part of the first phase of the NanoCollege project, which is located on an 11-acre, state-owned parcel between Interstate 90 and Washington Avenue Extension.

Gargini showed numerous photos of the Albany construction project in July at SemiconWest, an annual conference held each year in San Francisco for companies that make computer chip manufacturing equipment, also known as "tools."

The main question is why all the secrecy over the expansion plans and funding sources. Aside from that, it's awesome to see my alma mater at the forefront of tech research and plans made while I was still a student there to come to fruition to turn the university into a major research institution for nanotechnology.

Private Spacecraft To Fly To International Space Station In November

The last space shuttle mission ended a few weeks back, and it was expected that the US would have to rely on Russian spacecraft to get into space. Well, it turns out that SpaceX will be launching its Dragon capsule for an unmanned mission in November that serves not only as a test of the system, but will pave the way for private manned space missions.

We heard last month that NASA agreed to speed up SpaceX’s flight demo schedule, as SpaceX, eager to start making deliveries under its $1.6 billion NASA contract, asked NASA for permission to combine two planned missions into one. That mission is now targeted for the week after Thanksgiving, according to SpaceX.

In this demonstration under NASA’s Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program, SpaceX will launch its Dragon capsule aboard a Falcon 9 rocket Nov. 30, and dock with the ISS nine days later. It will carry a limited payload to the station, which is fully stocked through next year thanks to the final shuttle delivery.

SpaceX will apparently use the opportunity to launch some other stuff, too, using the Falcon’s second stage that will deploy after the Dragon capsule separates from its fairing.

The Dragon capsule, the first privately built reusable spacecraft, made its first flight in December, and SpaceX has been conducting tests and dry runs in the months since. The company said it is working out the kinks in its COTS plans so that NASA will give final approval for a single mission.

Light The Night Kickoff

This weekend, I had the honor to attend the 2011 Light The Night Walk kickoff event for Red Bank, New Jersey. The Red Bank walk in the newest location in New Jersey to host a Light the Night Walk -- this is the third year for this location. As I explained in an earlier post, Light the Night is the oldest walk to raise money for cancer research.

At the kickoff event, we heard some additional information regarding the new treatment breakthrough for chronic lymphocytic leukemia, or CLL. Lawhawk posted about this last week. This new therapy essentially takes cancer T-Cells, infuses them with a new protein and reintroduces them into the body. The new infused cells begin to attack the cancer cells, and most excitedly, get the bodies existing cells to fight the cancer as well. Currently, two patients are more than 1 year cancer free, with a third approaching 1 year. When they get 12 patients cancer free for 1 year, the procedure will be considered for approval.

The reason for the discussion at the kickoff was that the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society has donated more than $50 million to this research over the years. Over that past several years, the FDA has approved 19 new drugs and therapies for blood cancer -- all with the assistance of the LLS. Of the 19, 12 have been approved or are being studied for the treatment of other forms of cancer as well. That is remarkable.

I was watching a baseball game the other day and a commercial for the MLB's involvement with Stand Up 2 Cancer came on (anyone who saw the All Star Game, the Stand up 2 cancer half inning display was chilling.) They splashed two stats on the screen that shook me. 1 in 3 women and 1 in 2 men will get cancer. The numbers are staggering. With respect to blood cancer:
• Every 5 Minutes: Someone in the United States learns that he or she has leukemia, lymphoma, Hodgkin’s disease or myeloma.
• Every 10 Minutes: Another child or adult is expected to die from a blood cancer.

This is why I renew my plea to all our readers and donations to the Light the Night Walk can be made through the link on the top left of the page, or by going to my team page . Any amount of support is greatly appreciated. By donating, you are not only helping to cure blood cancers, support caregivers, assist patients with purchasing drugs they could not otherwise afford, but you are indirectly supporting research that is going to treat and cure other cancers as well.

Cautious Optimism On Novel Gene Therapy Cure For Leukemia

A very small study involving three patients receiving a novel gene therapy treatment appeared to cure two patients completely of a common form of leukemia. The third patient showed significant improvement.

I'm stressing the small size of the study, because such results might not be found when applied to a larger group and that many additional studies will be needed to confirm the early findings.

"It worked great. We were surprised it worked as well as it did," said Dr. Carl June, a gene therapy expert at the University of Pennsylvania. "We're just a year out now. We need to find out how long these remissions last."

He led the study, published Wednesday by two journals, New England Journal of Medicine and Science Translational Medicine.

It involved three men with very advanced cases of chronic lymphocytic leukemia, or CLL. The only hope for a cure now is bone marrow or stem cell transplants, which don't always work and carry a high risk of death.

Scientists have been working for years to find ways to boost the immune system's ability to fight cancer. Earlier attempts at genetically modifying bloodstream soldiers called T-cells have had limited success; the modified cells didn't reproduce well and quickly disappeared.

June and his colleagues made changes to the technique, using a novel carrier to deliver the new genes into the T-cells and a signaling mechanism telling the cells to kill and multiply.

That resulted in armies of "serial killer" cells that targeted cancer cells, destroyed them, and went on to kill new cancer as it emerged. It was known that T-cells attack viruses that way, but this is the first time it's been done against cancer, June said.

For the experiment, blood was taken from each patient and T-cells removed. After they were altered in a lab, millions of the cells were returned to the patient in three infusions.

The researchers described the experience of one 64-year-old patient in detail. There was no change for two weeks, but then he became ill with chills, nausea and fever. He and the other two patients were hit with a condition that occurs when a large number of cancer cells die at the same time — a sign that the gene therapy is working.

"It was like the worse flu of their life," June said. "But after that, it's over. They're well."

The main complication seems to be that this technique also destroys some other infection-fighting blood cells; so far the patients have been getting monthly treatments for that.

Penn researchers want to test the gene therapy technique in leukemia-related cancers, as well as pancreatic and ovarian cancer, he said. Other institutions are looking at prostate and brain cancer.

This study should spur investment and research at utilizing similar treatments for other common cancers.

While the imminent side effect of a bad flu lasting a week or so would be a vast improvement over the kinds of side effects from current treatment options, that include everything from prolonged weakness, hair loss, organ failure, auto-immune disorders, among others, that other immune cells are affected might have long-term consequences that need to be studied as well.

These patients will need to be studied over the next couple of years to see if their cancer remains in remission or if there are thus-far undiscovered side-effects such as other forms of cancer or illnesses that result from the gene therapy.

Still, that this development is going to spur investment and research on this technique is a major breakthrough and here's hoping that the results hold up.

Astronomers' Discovery May Lead To Improved Cancer Treatments; Another Argument In Favor of Basic Science Research

For many people who suffer from any number of cancers, radiation treatments are a vital part of the regime along with chemotherapy.

A discovery by astronomers studying black holes may make that radiation treatment far more effective and safer.

Pradhan conducted computer simulations to calculate how individual atoms would react to every wavelength of energy -- no small feat. They logged many hours at the Ohio Supercomputer Center to complete the analysis.

But the effort was worth it. Pradhan found that some of the prior measurements of chemical abundances inside stars might be off by as much as 50 percent. They were also intrigued by how certain heavy metal atoms absorb radiation: they emit low-energy electrons when exposed to x-rays at specific energies. For example, bombarding iron, gold and platinum with a small dose of x-rays tuned to a narrow frequency range results in a burst of low-energy electrons.

Both x-rays and heavy metals like gold and platinum are routinely used in medical imaging and cancer treatment, hinting at more practical applications. It's the fine-tuning of the x-ray source that seems to be key.

The scientists are now examining how to take advantage of this observation and the assembly of a device that would take advantage of the fact that gold or platinum nanoparticles amass naturally in cancerous tumors in the body, and could then be zapped with the focused x-ray beam. The beam wouldn't require the levels of radiation utilized at present and could be even more focused than existing technologies. It would allow cancer cells to be killed without damaging nearby health tissue. The goal is to combine radiation therapy with chemotherapy, using platinum as the active agent.

It would also be able to target cancers that are previously considered to be inoperable or resistant to current medical treatment.

Once again, this is the result of basic science research and a multidisciplinary view on basic science. Projects like the follow-up to the Hubble Telescope are under fire for being over cost and may be cut by the current Congress. That would be a huge mistake considering the vast amount of knowledge gleaned about the universe from the Hubble and other similar technologies. Canceling the Webb telescope would hinder further discoveries that may have spinoff applications in other fields, including medicine.

It's yet another reason to donate to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society's Light the Night campaign, which is fighting for a cure for a wide range of blood cancers, including the kind that Legalbgl wrote of that struck his wife, Non-Hodgkin’s disease called Primary Mediastinum B-Cell Lymphoma.

The Final Rollout of the Space Shuttle

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Scott Andrews, his son Philip Andrews and Stan Jirman used 15 cameras and shot 120,000 still images to create a 3-minute time-lapse video showing the 4-day process of preparing the shuttle for its trek to the launch pad.

Israeli Tech Company Figures Out Way To Harness Wasted Energy From Trains

An Israeli company has figured out a way to harness the power of moving locomotives by placing pads underneath the train rails to capture the power as the train glides by.

Israeli-based technology developer Innowattech specializes in the development of patented IPEG Piezo Electric Generators, which use the piezoelectric effect–the ability of a material to produce electricity when under mechanical stress–to retrieve the wasted energy vehicles create along roads, runways and rail.

This kind of technology would help build a generating capacity using energy lost from other sources - such as driving down roads or bridges.

Their proof of concept is an operational system on Israel's rail network. The piezoelectric system also can provide health data about the mode of transportation such as speed, weight, direction, and track condition among other things.

The Big Draw

Forget about televisions, washing machines, dryers, or even refrigerators. The ubiquitous set-top boxes (standard, HD, or DVR) necessary to run cable/fiber television programming is turning into the top power draw in homes throughout the United States.

Even when turned off, they draw power far in excess what anyone could possibly imagine.

Over the course of a year, each boxes can draw more power than a 21 cubic foot refrigerator. When homes have multiple boxes, the numbers add up quickly.

There are 160 million so-called set-top boxes in the United States, one for every two people, and that number is rising. Many homes now have one or more basic cable boxes as well as add-on DVRs, or digital video recorders, which use 40 percent more power than the set-top box.

One high-definition DVR and one high-definition cable box use an average of 446 kilowatt hours a year, about 10 percent more than a 21-cubic-foot energy-efficient refrigerator, a recent study found.

These set-top boxes are energy hogs mostly because their drives, tuners and other components are generally running full tilt, or nearly so, 24 hours a day, even when not in active use. The recent study, by the Natural Resources Defense Council, concluded that the boxes consumed $3 billion in electricity per year in the United States — and that 66 percent of that power is wasted when no one is watching and shows are not being recorded. That is more power than the state of Maryland uses over 12 months.

“People in the energy efficiency community worry a lot about these boxes, since they will make it more difficult to lower home energy use,” said John Wilson, a former member of the California Energy Commission who is now with the San Francisco-based Energy Foundation. “Companies say it can’t be done or it’s too expensive. But in my experience, neither one is true. It can be done, and it often doesn’t cost much, if anything.”

Reducing the power consumption for these devices is critical to reducing power consumption and need for additional power. There's no reason that these devices should draw as much power as they are. The cable providers claim it is necessary to provide programming and updates without interruption, but this would appear to be a software issue and if the boxes are designed to improve efficiency, the power consumption issue could be solved.

After all, boxes in Europe draw a fraction of the power.

It's past time for the cable companies and providers to get on the ball and reduce power consumption for their devices.

NASA Officially Ends Spirit Mars Mission

The mission that landed the rovers Spirit and Opportunity on the Martian surface was only supposed to last 90 days. Yet, both rovers were sending back useful information for more than 6 years although Spirit has been out of contact with controlled since March of last year. NASA has finally ended efforts to contact the probe, ending a mission that has witnessed more than 127,000 images sent back, along with geological details on rock samples taken along the rover's path.

Of course, Spirit lived a long and fruitful life on the Red Planet, something like 25 times longer than it was supposed to. Designed for a three month mission that began in 2004, Spirit logged more than six years on the job. During that time it beamed back 127,000 raw images of the Martian surface, including 16 color, 360-degree panoramas. It also drilled into 15 rock targets and scoured 92 more, gathering invaluable data on the planet’s geology.

Spirit also had a traveler’s soul, crossing the Columbia Hills and putting 4.8 miles on the odometer while crossing the Gusev Crater alone--part of it while driving backwards when one of its wheels ceased functioning in 2006. Martian winter after harsh Martian winter, Spirit returned to the job.

Cause of death: NASA engineers will likely never know for sure, but while Spirit survived the Martian winter three times previously, the most recent was particularly harsh, offering very little solar energy with which to run its survival heaters. As such, any number of critical systems could have been damaged by the cold. Engineers held out hope that the spring thaw might reawaken Spirit, but with no word yet NASA must reorient its Mars communications resources to support the upcoming launch of NASA’s next-gen rover, Curiosity (aka the Mars Science Laboratory), later this year.

Spirit ended up operating more than 25 longer than originally planned. Opportunity continues operating well beyond its original parameters and had driven many times beyond what was originally anticipated.

The durability of these tough little rovers has paved the way for a new generation of Mars exploration vehicles that will hopefully answer more questions about the Martian environment.

Of course, for those who are still of the belief that there are little green men on Mars, this is the alternative explanation for what happened to Spirit:


or:


or:



You know that NASA has done well when the success of these rovers is such that we can recycle their likenesses for humorous videos.

NJ Transit Unveils New Diesel/Electric Engines

NJ Transit unveiled its new DMU engines last week, which allow the engine to switch from a diesel mode to an electric mode, depending on whether overhead catenary lines are available.

On the Morris-Essex line, which is electrified in some portions and diesel powered on others, a dual-mode train would allow passengers to get on in Hackettstown and travel into New York Penn Station without having to transfer, said Kevin O' Connor, vice-president and general manager for rail operations.

But users of the Pascack Valley and Main and Bergen lines, which are powered by diesel fuel, will still have to make transfers in Secaucus to electric-powered trains because diesel trains cannot go into the tunnels into New York, NJ Transit spokesman Dan Stessel said.

Ironically, it was the Bergen and Passaic commuters that were originally supposed to benefit when NJ Transit in 2008 purchased the first 26 dual-mode locomotives from Canada-based Bombardier Transit Corporation for an estimated $310 million.

The cost includes design, engineering, manufacturing, training and spare parts, with the option to purchase additional locomotives in the future. In July 2010, NJ Transit purchased an additional nine dual-mode locomotives.

They were originally purchased as part of the agency’s $8.7 billion project to build two new rail tunnels — a plan that included building a direct connection from the Bergen, Main and Pascack Valley lines to the Northeast Corridor lines which feed New York’s Penn Station.

The project, known as ARC, for “Access to the Region’s Core,” would have allowed Bergen and Passaic counties’ commuters to board a dual-mode powered train on the Pascack Valley or Main and Bergen lines, switch to electric power near Secaucus, and then travel directly into New York Penn Station without transferring.

That option died last October when Governor Christie killed the ARC project, citing projections that the project could go as much as $5 billion over budget.

Still, NJ Transit moved forward with the purchase of the locomotives. Stessel said NJ Transit did have the right to cancel the order.

“However, we were pretty far along with design and production; the cost to cancel would be significant,” he said.

“We can use them on the lines in Bergen County,” Stessel said. “Those would be in diesel mode. In the future, if there ever was a project that builds a loop or Amtrak builds the ‘Gateway tunnels’ … this gives you maximum flexibility because wherever you are in the NJ Transit system, you can operate.”

Alfred Doblin of NJ Transit complains about the purchase, and specifically questions why NJ Transit made the purchase when the ostensible purpose for the purchase is no longer there. The trains were purchased in anticipation of the ARC tunnel, but the project was killed by Gov. Chris Christie. NJ Transit went ahead with the purchase anyways.

I disagree with Doblin on the new trains' utility. They can be useful to reduce emissions at terminal stations like Hoboken, where the diesel engines could switch to electric mode and use the overhead wire system to reduce emissions around Hoboken. This is particularly useful because the station and the surrounding area can be overcome by a haze of diesel particulates from the idling diesel locomotives. They may also actually save the agency on energy costs by using less diesel fuel over the life of the locomotives.

Doblin further notes that the trains could be used to help provide a one-seat ride sooner rather than later - if NJ Transit goes ahead and builds the loop connector for the North Jersey rail lines (Bergen/Main/Pascack) into Midtown.

That would not only be possible years ahead of any tunnel expansion project in providing the mythical one-seat ride. However, NJ Transit lacks the capital resources to make that happen - or the operating budget to expand service for North Jersey to add one-seat rides to Manhattan from Northern New Jersey. This has been one of my bones of contention with the ARC project and the Gateway projects - NJ Transit doesn't have the operating budgets to expand its schedule along these routes - and has taken to cutting train service on the Bergen/Main line so unless it simply diverts trains from Hoboken to Midtown, this isn't likely to happen anytime soon (assuming that NJ Transit can shoehorn additional trains into Manhattan through the existing tunnels).

Now, what exactly could NJ Transit have done with the $310 million instead of buying these new locomotives? Well, it could have upgraded station parking at locations where demand is greatest (increasing ridership and improving access). It could have increased the number of stations receiving high level platforms to meet ADA requirements and reduce dwell times at stations due to passengers having to literally climb aboard at the low platforms.

Still, all this boils down to a simple question: was this the best use of limited resources?

If NJ Transit can show that the new locomotives will save money in the long term by using electric power instead of idling on diesel power and can reduce delays and improve overall reliability, then the new purchases may well be worth it. However, knowing how NJ Transit has squandered its limited resources in the past, don't count on seeing a cost savings from this purchase.

Wringing Bugs Out of Electric Vehicles

The Chevy Volt and the Nissan Leaf are the first wide-production scale electric vehicles in the hopes of spurring the development of an electric-powered infrastructure. The rollout is not without troubles, and both GM and Nissan are looking at some problems with both of their vehicles.

Nissan has carried out a voluntary recall to deal with an electronic bug that prevents the car from restarting once it is shut down. That's a minor inconvenience compared with the problem that GM is hoping to sort out in coming weeks and months.

GM investigators are combing through the wreckage of a home in Connecticut where an owner of a home-built electric vehicle and the family's Chevy Volt caught fire and reduced the garage to rubble. The problem may not be traced back to the Volt, but the Volt apparently reignited some time after the original fire was put out. That's a serious problem.

Now, it is possible that the original fire had nothing to do with the Volt, and it was simply incidental to the original fire. It could have been due to electrical problems with wiring in the garage, the other electric vehicle, or a combination of factors. However, no one quite knows why the Volt reignited, and that's where GM is going to be focusing its attention.

If anything, the situation with the Volt highlights the need for proper electric hookups and the potentially dangerous situation that can occur if someone doesn't properly install the high capacity chargers - fires that can destroy property or even injury or loss of life. The family in Connecticut was saved because of a firebreak between the attached garage and the residential portion of the home.

Japanese Benefited From Early Alert System; Where Is US System?

This is pretty damned spectacular and cool. Tokyo and other areas of the country received alerts of the impending massive 8.9 quake before it could be felt.

In Tokyo, because of its distance from northern Japan, the warning message reached people before the quake actually jolted the capital. When an earthquake occurs, seismometers near its source detect the first shockwave, which is usually mild and harmless. This wave is followed by another wave that travels more slowly and is much stronger and potentially destructive.

The agency's computer system analyzes the first, faster-traveling wave and quickly estimates how powerful the second wave will be; if it is likely to be very powerful, the system immediately issues a warning message.

The message comes on TV and radio, and many Japanese cellphones can receive and display the message. Some power and gas facilities as well as railway and industrial systems automatically halt their operations the moment they receive the warning message, the spokesman said.

In places relatively far from the seismic center, people can receive the warning up to half a minute or so before the quake reaches those areas.

Japan is the only country that has such an early warning system, according to the meteorological agency. The agency developed the system with help from scientists and launched it in December 2007.

The system is designed to send out the warning only if the intensity of the quake is lower 5 or stronger on the Japanese scale. (The scale has three levels for each number, so there's lower 5, 5 and upper 5.) Friday's quake was 7 on that scale, and the system sent out the warning message 8.6 seconds after it detected the very first shock wave.

Note that this was developed by the Japanese equivalent to the American NOAA.

30 seconds might not seem like a lot - but that's enough time to duck and cover or get others to a safer location. It can also help shut down chemical processes before the tremor hits - limiting damage further.

Scientists have been working on developing alert systems for years - discerning trigger signals that act as precursors to the movement that causes the potential damaging shaking.

­­P-waves and ­S-waves. Both types leave the fault surface at the same time, but there the similarities end. ­­P-waves, like sound waves, are compression waves. They travel relatively quickly, but they do not carry much power. During an earthquake, you feel the ­P-waves as a sudden, vertical thump. ­S-waves are more like ocean waves, slow movers that contain most of the energy and bring the strongest shak­ing. The ground motion is horizontal and vertical, and they can bat entire buildings around like they were dinghies in the surf.

In addition, not all waves look alike; they take on different shapes depending on the size of the slip patch. The ­P-wave radiation for small slip patches has relatively low amplitude and high frequency—a small but sharp pulse. Bigger earthquakes rupture larger areas of a fault and have more slip, so the ­P-wave is larger in amplitude and lower in frequency. It is akin to the difference between the squeak of a small bird and the roar of a grizzly bear.

A single seismometer could estimate the magnitude of the earthquake based on just this information. Any ­P-wave with high amplitude and low frequency would trigger a warning. This single-station approach is the fastest way to give warnings near the epicenter. Yet the character of earthquake ruptures varies—not all magnitude 5.0 earthquakes look the same—and the specific sediments underneath the seismometer modify the ­P-wave. This variability increases the risk of both false alarms—warnings when there is no earthquake—and missed alarms when a damaging earthquake is under way.

The Japanese meteorological agency managed to install their system, but the US has been sorely lagging in this department.

The US, and particularly the West Coast and California, would benefit from such a system, but work on a similar system is well behind the curve. Even Mexico has a system in place, but the Japanese have taken it to another level with alerts that are broadcast not only on televisions and radio, but with text messages and email alerts for all manner of communications paths.

The Japanese system's merits were proven in earlier quakes, coincidentally hitting near Sendai (the epicenter of the worst damage in today's quake), when factories managed to shut down key systems reducing fire and other damage.

So, why has the US lagged? Funding - or the lack of same. Part of the problem is the deployment of thousands of sensors around California and the most quake-prone areas. There are significant gaps in the sensor placement. That's critical data that is missing.

And the cost for the installation? $80 million.

That's a small price to pay for the potential of saving countless lives, and reducing property damage.

Can Shark Skin Lead To Revolutionary Breakthrough in Infection Control?

Scientists have long wondered how exactly sharks were able to avoid having all manner of skin infections - whether it was marine growths like barnacles or bacterial infections.

Well, it turns out that sharks' abilities to resist those kinds of infections may have something to do with the shape of the skin cells that cover their entire body. This has tremendous repercussions for naval builders - including the US Navy and shipping industry, that spend billions annually cleaning and attempting to prevent the buildup of marine growths on ships that reduce their speed and efficiency. More profound is that the discovery may lead to a revolution in infection control

Patented by Sharklet Technologies, a Florida-based biotech company, the film, which is covered with microscopic diamond-shaped bumps, is the first “surface topography” proven to keep the bugs at bay. In tests in a California hospital, for three weeks the plastic sheeting’s surface prevented dangerous microorganisms, such as E. coli and Staphylococcus A, from establishing colonies large enough to infect humans. Bacteria have an easier time spreading out on smooth surfaces, says CEO Joe Bagan: “We think they come across this surface and make an energy-based decision that this is not the right place to form a colony.” Because it doesn’t kill the bacteria, there’s also little chance of the microbes evolving resistance to it. Hey, it’s worked for sharks for 400 million years.

Sharklet is looking to exploit not only their knowledge for naval shipbuilders like the US Navy, but the medical advances that could help reduce the spread of infections in hospitals and the reliance on chemicals and antibiotics for infection control.

The company is looking at developing a wide range of thin films that could be affixed to heavy-traffic areas to reduce the spread of bacterial infections. Everything from medical devices to hospital bed railings or elevator controls could be treated with the film, reducing the spread of bacterial infections, with the possibility of a major savings on health care costs from infection control.