Modifying Staple Crops to Raise Intelligence of Third World People

Golden Rice
One of the many problems contributing to low intelligence and low productivity of billions of impoverished third world people, is their dependency on staple food crops which lack key nutrients. Staple crops often grow well in local soils and climates, but are lacking in nutritional components which the human body requires for optimal development and functioning.

On a per acreage basis, corn yield exceeds that of the other two major crops, wheat and soybean, by 2- to 3-fold. However, the nutritional quality of corn protein in these high yielding hybrids remains relatively poor due to its deficiency in essential amino acids, such as lysine. The focus of corn breeding on yield, which has resulted in a shift in grain composition from protein to starch1, has compounded this nutritional deficiency. As a major food and feed staple crop, corn is a poor protein source in both quality and quantity. Advancements in agricultural biotechnology may help improve the nutritional quality of corn protein, starting with lysine enhancement. _isb.vt.edu

Understand that the promotion of yield most often occurs through selective breeding by indigenous farmers, and has resulted in the ability to support more people from the same amount of land. But if protein quality is diminished through indigenous farming practises, persons who are dependent upon such staples will not reach their peak levels of development or performance.

Besides maize, other staples being genetically modified include cassava:

Although cassava is a major source of carbohydrates for 700 million people, mostly in Africa, it normally contains only small amounts of protein. Claude Fauquet of the Danforth Plant Science Center in St Louis, Missouri, and his team bumped up the protein content to 12.5 per cent by adding bean and maize genes to make a protein called zeolin. They were surprised to find that the plant used its natural supply of cyanide to provide the building blocks of the new protein. "Cyanide is a source of nitrogen within the plant," explains Fauquet.

While non-modified cassava supplies just one-fifth of daily protein requirements, the extra protein is enough to supply the needs of infants on a typical cassava-based diet (PLoS One, DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0016256). Fauquet says his root could save 1 in 4 African children from a potentially fatal condition called protein-energy malnutrition. _NS

PLoSONE article with details on cassava modification

Another staple starch crop being modified to produce more protein, is the "protato."

A team of Indian scientists have grown for the first time, a genetically modified spud called ‘protato’ that makes up to 60 per cent more protein per gram than ordinary potatoes.

Apart from that, the new crop created by Subra Chakraborty and colleagues at India's Central Potato Research Institute in Shimla also yielded more potato per hectare, reports New Scientist.

The team gave the potatoes a gene from the grain amaranth, a South American plant widely eaten across the tropics, including India. It was linked to a DNA code that turns on production of the storage protein in tubers. _IndianExpress

There is no question that such modifications hold one of the keys to successful colonisation of low-gravity space and other planets such as Mars or Luna. The ability to engineer a hardy staple crop which grows in moon gravel or air (aeroponics), and provides virtually all the nutrients and fiber persons need -- including children and pregnant females -- would clearly simplify the food aspect of adaptation to life off Earth.

One of the more famous GM modifications of a staple crop is "golden rice" -- a form of rice engineered to produce high levels of Beta Carotene. In populations suffering chronic Vitamin A deficiencies, such a crop could make a significant improvement in quality of life throughout the human life cycle. Publications detailing the Golden Rice project

Clearly the crop scientists creating the genetically modified foods mentioned above are attempting to create staple crops which the indigenous people will recognise and accept as familiar. But for true pioneers -- such as space colonists -- who are willing to put up with a bit of unfamiliarity initially, a far more radical GM food creation will be required.

What is needed is foods with minimal roots and stems, and maximum edible food. The crop's environment can be structured around its genetic requirements, by design. The food could not have a repellent taste or odour -- probably better for it to have a mild, minimal taste. Space chefs can season the staple to taste like just about anything, as long as the texture and appearance was acceptable.

Wikimedia's Role in Dumbing Down the Idiocracy?

NYT
Several areas of commerce, enterprise, and science remain the province of mainly-male participation. Physics, mathematics, advanced computer science, technical engineering, math-intensive sciences, aircraft test pilots and combat pilots, commercial sea captains, and so on. Most informed people understand that research is dominated by males, but few people realise that technical information intensive areas -- such as highly demanding reference information providers -- are also dominated by males. A lot of politically involved feminists would like to change that situation, but is there a danger in moving too forcefully from the top down when changes may adversely affect critically important services?

...surveys suggest that less than 15 percent of [Wikipedia's] hundreds of thousands of contributors are women.

About a year ago, the Wikimedia Foundation, the organization that runs Wikipedia, collaborated on a study of Wikipedia’s contributor base and discovered that it was barely 13 percent women; the average age of a contributor was in the mid-20s, according to the study by a joint center of the United Nations University and Maastricht University.

...The notion that a collaborative, written project open to all is so skewed to men may be surprising. After all, there is no male-dominated executive team favoring men over women, as there can be in the corporate world; Wikipedia is not a software project, but more a writing experiment — an “exquisite corpse,” or game where each player adds to a larger work.

...The public is increasingly going to Wikipedia as a research source: According to a recent Pew survey, the percentage of all American adults who use the site to look for information increased to 42 percent in May 2010, from 25 percent in February 2007. This translates to 53 percent of adults who regularly use the Internet.

Jane Margolis, co-author of a book on sexism in computer science, “Unlocking the Clubhouse,” argues that Wikipedia is experiencing the same problems of the offline world, where women are less willing to assert their opinions in public. “In almost every space, who are the authorities, the politicians, writers for op-ed pages?” said Ms. Margolis, a senior researcher at the Institute for Democracy, Education and Access at the University of California, Los Angeles.

...Ms. Gardner said that for now she was trying to use subtle persuasion and outreach through her foundation to welcome all newcomers to Wikipedia, rather than advocate for women-specific remedies like recruitment or quotas.

“Gender is a huge hot-button issue for lots of people who feel strongly about it,” she said. “I am not interested in triggering those strong feelings.”

Kat Walsh, a policy analyst and longtime Wikipedia contributor who was elected to the Wikimedia board, agreed that indirect initiatives would cause less unease in the Wikipedia community than more overt efforts.

But she acknowledged the hurdles: “The big problem is that the current Wikipedia community is what came about by letting things develop naturally — trying to influence it in another direction is no longer the easiest path, and requires conscious effort to change.” _NYT

The Wikipedia world is indeed a rough and tumble world of competitive edits and re-writes. If a person cannot withstand criticism and competition, they will not likely last long in that world.

The male hormone testosterone shapes the human brain in multiple ways not yet fully comprehended by science or society at large. Much of what science has learned about the influence of hormones such as testosterone on the gender differences so prevalent in society, is considered not politically correct -- and thus essentially unmentionable in left-leaning tabloids such as the New York Times, quoted above. Testosterone makes males more interested in objects than people, more competitive, have generally superior spatial and higher math skills, physically larger and stronger with greater stamina, tending to greater independence, and generally more logically determined and less emotional in the face of distractions.

Charles Murray's fascinating book, Human Accomplishment, provides a historical reflection of the phenomenon that Wikimedia's executives and critics are struggling with. Males have tended to achieve the lion's share of discoveries, inventions, and masterpieces of art, music, and literature as far back as history can tell.

A population shrinkage is occurring among the more intelligent people of the world -- Europeans and Northeast Asians -- while an explosive growth of population is occurring among the less intelligent people of the world. The average intelligence of the human population is inexorably dropping from near 90 points of IQ, downward -- close to the mid-80s and below. That qualifies as an Idiocracy.

In order to dumb down the Idiocracy, one must institute foolish rules of arbitrary and counter-productive governance, while educating the populace to accept dumbed-down groupthink rather than to think for themselves. It is easier than you might think. What Wikimedia is contemplating -- and what many western governments have done, and called affirmative action -- is an excellent example.

Also published at Al Fin and Al Fin, the Next Level

Small Modular Reactors Set to Thrive in Post-Obama Age

A global race is under way to develop small-reactor designs, says Paul Genoa of the Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry body in Washington, DC. He estimates that more than 20 countries have expressed serious interest in buying mini-reactors.

At least eight different approaches are being developed, mainly in America and Asia, by an army of 3,000 nuclear engineers, according to Ron Moleschi of SNC-Lavalin Nuclear, an engineering firm based in Montreal. Regulatory and licensing procedures are lengthy, so little will be built until around 2017, he says. But after that the industry is expected to take off. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) estimates that by 2030 at least 40 (and possibly more than 90) small reactors will be in operation. It reckons that more than half of the countries that will build nuclear plants in coming years will plump for these smaller, simpler designs. _Economist

Economist
Obama's Nuclear Regulatory Commission is dragging its feet on nuclear energy -- particularly on new safer, more economical reactor designs such as small modular reactors (SMRs). But Obama's agenda of energy starvation, and its job-killing, industry-killing effects are living on borrowed time. In the real world, all forms of currently suppressed energy -- including small modular nuclear reactors -- will find a way.

Upcoming conferences on Small Modular Reactors:

19-20 April 2011 Conference in Columbia, SC, on Small Modular Reactors:

The conference is expected to draw about 120 people from about 60 companies and agencies around the world, such as China National Nuclear Corp., the International Atomic Energy Agency and Iraq Energy Institute. Also, industry heavyweights like Westinghouse, AREVA and GE have signed up, along with the U.S. Department of Energy, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the U.S. Army and utilities across the nation.

The conference, scheduled to be held April 19-20 at the Marriott Hotel on Main Street, is sponsored by SCE&G and organized by the Carolinas’ Nuclear Cluster and Nuclear Energy Insider _thestate

SMR Conference 23-24 May 2011 Washington, DC...._ Call for abstracts

Small modular reactors can be built more quickly, safely, and cheaply in a controlled factory environment. They can then be shipped to the site for a quick and inexpensive installation -- pre-loaded with fuel and ready to hook up.

The US Navy has been powering ships safely using small nuclear reactors for many decades. One of the most likely future suppliers of SMRs to the civilian market -- Babcock and Wilcox -- just received a new $2 billion award for Naval Nuclear Reactor Components.

But then, the US military has to actually accomplish something -- unlike the civil portion of the US government which generally does no more than consume scarce resources which would be put to better use elsewhere.

Short Primer on Liquid Fuel Nuclear Reactors

EnergyfromThorium
This is a re-published Al Fin article which was adapted from an earlier article at Al Fin Energy

72,000 Square Foot Concrete Country Cabin -- Your Tax Dollars at Work

CCHeadliner
How does a person afford to build a house larger than the White House (55,000 sq. ft), even larger than Bill Gates' mansion (66,000 sq ft)? All you have to do is to own a company that maintains big contracts with the US Defense Dept and several other US government agencies. Under President Obama, the government is central to all wealth formation and disbursal. More on the huge 72,000 square feet country cabin:

Beginning with a 23,000-square-foot basement, the house’s ground level is only slightly smaller and the second story is a little less than 22,000 square feet.

Garage space alone accounts for 4,000 square feet.

Interior plans include two elevators; 15 bedrooms; 14 bathrooms; a two-story, 1,600-square-foot library and two-story, 1,970-square-foot great hall.

The master bedroom is 1,275 square feet.

...“It’s all concrete, and I’ve heard it’ll have bulletproof glass and a concrete roof,” said Steve Johnson, neighbor to the Woods Fork Road property.

...Records show the building is owned by the Steven T. Huff Family, LLC, but exactly who Steven T. Huff is, is largely unknown. His brother, Joe Huff, Ozark, verified the ownership of the property but was reluctant to disclose any more information.

“The technology involved with the construction is proprietary in nature,” Joe Huff said. “it’s not information we are prepared to talk about right now.”

Joe Huff also verified that the structure is being built as a personal residence and identified himself as the “project manager.” However, available information online and in public records indicate Steven Huff is involved in technological engineering.

The property’s deed says the Steven T. Huff Family, LCC is located in Leesburg, Va. Available online records of political campaign contributions show a Steven T. Huff of Leesburg to be an engineer and chief technology officer of Overwatch Systems, Ltd. According to the Overwatch website, the company “delivers multi-source intelligence (multi-INT), geospatial analysis and custom intelligence solutions to the Department of Defense, national agencies and civilian organizations. ... More than 25,000 analysts in the U.S. Department of Defense and the larger intelligence community utilize Overwatch solutions.”

A company overview of Overwatch on the Bloomberg Businessweek website says Overwatch was formerly known as Sensor Systems.

Overwatch also owns the Medical Numerics company, which, according to its website, “enjoys powerful collaborations with the world’s leading medical imaging research organizations, including The United States National Institutes of Health, Harvard Medical School, Yale University, UCLA School of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University, Georgetown University, and Oxford University.”

The Medical Numerics website says Steven Huff founded Sensor Systems—now Overwatch—in 1993. _CCHeadliner

The home is located near Highlandville, Missouri.

All Quiet on the Watchtower?

Martello towers were built, at great cost, along the coasts of Kent, Sussex, Essex and Suffolk at the time of the Napoleonic wars. Originally, there were 103 of these 30ft-high towers, with walls 13ft thick and roof-mounted cannons capable of shooting lead balls a mile out to sea. _Guardian

Guardian
These coastal towers still stand guard along the English coast, watching against the risk of Napoleon re-born. If you imagine yourself as a modern-day watchman, protector against the invading destroyer, one of these towers may be reserved just for you.

The overall effect is magical: brick fort on the outside, palatial home within. The main space, approached from the entrance lobby, is breathtaking, with the climb up the spiral stairs enjoyably spooky, and the top floor a revelation: all light, space and comfort, with little hint of ostentation. But then you don't need decoration when you have the sea and all its moods just beyond the parapet, with ships hoving in and out of view, and sunlight playing over that lichen-encrusted brickwork throughout the day. _Guardian

Some refurbishment will be required, however. Back in the day of Napoleon, they lacked such modern amenities as satellite television, the internet, electricity, and . . . flush toilets. Interior designs and standards of interior thermal control may have changed a bit as well.

Think it over. If Europe and the UK experience half the tumult that seems to be headed that way, you may be happy to be living in a fortress by the time the storm passes over.

What Happens to the Planetary Power Supply When Sol Erupts?

SolarFlare NASA
What would happen to electrical infrastructure on Earth if the sun passes through a period of massive solar flaring as occurred in 1859 or 1921?

On Earth, power lines, data connections and even oil and gas pipelines are potentially vulnerable.

An early warning of the risk came in 1859, when the biggest CME ever observed unleashed red, purple and green auroras even in tropical latitudes.

The new-fangled technology of the telegraph went crazy. Geomagnetically-induced currents in the wires shocked telegraph operators and even set the telegraph paper on fire.

In 1989, a far smaller flare knocked out power from Canada's Hydro Quebec generator, inflicting a nine-hour blackout for six million people.

...Recurrence of a 1921 event today would fry 350 major transformers, leaving more than 130 million people without power, it heard. A bigger storm could cost between a trillion and two trillion dollars in the first year, and full recovery could take between four and 10 years. _Breitbart

Here's the scary part: if government leaders follow through on their threat to install a "smart grid" in order to facilitate "green energy", the power grid will become up to 100 times more vulnerable to solar flares, EMP attacks, and computer hacker attacks. Think about that at your next Sierra Club outing.

Previously published at Al Fin the Next Level

Obama Inflates Zombie Bubble to Bursting Point

Wired

Zombies have become particularly popular since Barack Obama ascended to the US Senate, and into the presidency. Undeterred by the ongoing Great Obama Economic Depression, the Zombie Bubble continues to inflate against all economic odds.

Zombie franchises continued to spike even when the Dow plummeted in 2008, and they’ve kept going. This can mean only one thing: a zombie bubble. _Wired

The graphic above fails to even scratch the surface of the vast horde of zombie flicks and TV shows that have been produced over the past several years.

When even the president of the world's sole superpower is himself a zombie, how could an investment into the zombie bubble fail? How indeed. Tune in again in mid-November of 2012.

Make Mine a Hemp and Lime

The building seen at left is a HemPod.  It was made by University of Bath researchers to demonstrate the usefulness of simple, renewable materials for high-performance, high-value, low maintenance and upkeep housing.

Called the "HemPod," this one-storey building has highly insulating walls made from the chopped woody core, or shiv, of the industrial hemp plant mixed with a specially developed lime-based binder.
The hemp shiv traps air in the walls, and the hemp itself is porous, making the walls incredibly well insulated. The lime-based binder sticks together and protects the hemp and makes the building material highly fire resistant.

..."The walls are breathable and act as a sort of passive air-conditioning system, meaning that the internal humidity is kept constant and the quality of the air within the house is very good. The walls also have a 'virtual thermal mass' because of the remarkable pore structure of hemp shiv combined with the properties of the lime binder, which means the building is much more thermally efficient and the temperature inside the house stays fairly constant."
Professor Pete Walker, Director of the BRE Centre for Innovative Construction Materials, added: "The aim of the project is to provide some robust data to persuade the mainstream building industry to use this building material more widely.

"Hemp grows really quickly; it only takes the area the size of a rugby pitch to grow enough hemp in three months to build a typical three-bedroom house.

..."Every part of the plant can be used, so there's no waste -- the shiv is used for building, the fibres can make car panels, clothing or paper, and the seeds can be used for food or oil. So it's a very efficient, renewable material.

"Lime has been used in construction for millennia, and combining it with industrial hemp is a significant development in the effort to make construction more sustainable."
Environmentally-friendly building materials are often more expensive than traditional materials, but the Renewable House project (www.renewable-house.co.uk) funded by the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) and the National Non-Food Crops Centre (NNFCC) demonstrated a cost of around £75,000 (excluding foundations) to build a three-bedroom Code 4 house from hemp-lime making it competitive with conventional bricks and mortar. _SD

Manyof the same features of "breathable walls" and built-in thermal mass can be found in more primitive materials such as slip-form compressed straw-clay walled buildings. But it seems more likely that more processed hemp materials combined with a lime binder would be far more durable than the clay slip walls. It will be interesting to see the data that comes out of this experiment.

How to Fly a Helicopter

Flying a helicopter is slightly more instinctive and intuitive than flying a fixed-wing aircraft. Since your "wings" are rotating, you are in constant control of all aspects of flying. This short video presents a quickie look at the art of helicopter flying. But don't try it at home in a real helicopter until you get more training.

Some of the electronic simulators for piloting a helicopter are pretty impressive. Start with the basics. If it works out, you can have access to more personal freedom of movement than you ever thought possible.

Turn a Broken Down Backyard Pool Into A Compact Farm

We created GardenPool.org to document our journey of converting an old backyard swimming pool in to a way to feed our family and live more self-sufficiently. When we purchased our first home in Mesa, AZ on October of 2009, it came with a large, empty, and run-down pool. Rather than spending thousands of dollars in fixing the pool or having it filled with fill dirt we decided to design an inexpensive & self-sufficient urban greenhouse. Initially, we had anticipated self-sufficiency by 2012 but we achieved our goal by mid-2010. Our family gets about 8 fresh eggs a day, unlimited tilapia fish, organic fruit, veggies, and herbs 365 days a year. _GardenPool

The GP combines:

• solar power – harnessing and storing the sun’s energy
• water conservation – using less water and recycling waste water
• poultry farming – raising chickens
• aquaculture – raising tilapia fish
• hydroponic gardening – growing fruits, veggies, & herbs without soil
• organic horticulture – using natural methods to control garden pests
• aquaponics – the symbiotic cultivation of produce and fish in a recirculating hydroponic environment.
• biofiltration – natural water filtration method using biochemistry and duckweed.

_GP.org

If you have a backyard pool you would like to convert into a permanent food source, watch the video and visit the website.

Here is a bonus concept to think about: Scientists at MIT are perfecting new cheap catalysts for converting any kind of water into hydrogen or oxygen -- using electricity from a photovoltaic array. With hydrogen and oxygen, you can power a home fuel cell which can provide your home power, heat, and hot water -- even pure drinking water from brackish or polluted water..

Combine the two ideas -- the permanent micro-farm, with the make-your-own hydrogen and oxygen for a home fuel cell -- et, voila! You are halfway toward self-sufficiency. You may want to locate in an arid part of the world where the sun shines regularly, at not too high a latitude, so as to assure plenty of sunlight year round.

The technologies are coming which will make quasi self-sufficiency much cheaper and easier for almost anyone. Keep your eyes open.

High Alcohol Tolerance in Yeast Yields Rocket Powered Homebrew

Every beer homebrewer likes to tweak his brew from time to time, to maximise certain flavours or effects. Now scientists from the US and South Korea have found 4 genes in yeast that can be tweaked to create a highly alcohol-tolerant yeast. This means that instead of brewing a homebrew with 6% or 8% ethanol, you will soon be able to brew a beer at home with 30% or more ethanol. With yeast that powerful, I may have to get better at making wine and cider!

Researchers from S. Korea and the US have developed a strain of yeast with increased alcohol tolerance that could lead to more efficient and economical production of alcohol-based biofuels.

Yeast produces alcohol through microbial fermentation; however, at a certain concentration, the biofuels that are being created become toxic to the yeast used in making them, said Yong-Su Jin, an assistant professor of microbial genomics in the U of I Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition and a faculty member in the U of I’s Institute for Genomic Biology. “Our goal was to find a gene or genes that reduce this toxic effect.”

The team worked with Saccharomyces cerevisiae to identify four genes (MSN2, DOG1, HAL1, and INO1) that improve tolerance to ethanol and iso-butanol when they are overexpressed.

...Overexpression of any of the four genes remarkably increased ethanol tolerance, but the strain in which INO1 was overexpressed elicited the highest ethanol yield and productivity, with increases of more than 70% for ethanol volume and more than 340% for ethanol tolerance when compared to the control strain.

According to Jin, the functions of the identified genes are very diverse and unrelated, which suggests that tolerance to high concentrations of iso-butanol and ethanol might involve the complex interactions of many genetic elements in yeast.

For example, some genes increase cellular viability at the expense of fermentation. Others are more balanced between these two functions. Identification of these genes should enable us to produce transportation fuels from biomass more economically and efficiently. It’s a first step in understanding the cellular reaction that currently limits the production process.

—Yong-Su Jin

Further study of these genes should increase alcohol tolerance even further, and that will translate into cost savings and greater efficiency during biofuel production, he added. _GCC

Sure, they talk about alcohol as biofuel, but we really know what this is about, right (wink, wink)? Take a girl out for a drink, pour her a glass of beer, and before you know it she's become quite agreeable. But eventually the girls will catch on to what we've done, then we'll have to come up with another approach.

She Doesn't Need You

A nice and easy cross-genre performance with a pleasant blend of instruments and vocals.

The peaks and valleys of a long, active love life will take you beyond your limits. If you are able to incorporate the lessons learned without indulging in too much bitterness, you will be better for it.

If You Build It, They Will Come

The builder of this 8,000 square foot treehouse was told in a vision that if he built it, he would never run out of materials. So he did, and he didn't, and yes, they do come -- 400-500 a week come to visit this rustic record-setting treehouse near Crossville, Tennessee.

Although he never bothered to measure Minister’s House (he estimates it must be about 8,000 to 10,000 square feet), he did count the nails he had to hammer into it, 258,000. It cost the 56-year-old landscape architect around $12,000 to construct the world’s biggest treehouse.
400-500 people visit Minister’s House every week, most of them tourists from out of state who heard about a 10-story-treehouse somewhere in Tennessee. _Oddity

100 MW Factory Made Small Modular Reactor from ARC: Perfect for All Your Survival Needs

Advanced Reactor Concepts (ARC) is a firm based in Reston, Virginia. ARC intends to factory-build a 100 MW sodium cooled fast reactor which has already been proven at the Argonne National Lab West in Idaho.

Built to provide 20 years of power per fueling, the ARC 100 is perfect for your underground survival compound, to give you time to get back on your feet after an EMP or similar catastrophic event. Sometimes it is best to lay low for a decade or two, until things cool down.More from Idaho Samizdat Nuke Notes (from an entry in the 7th Carnival of Nuclear Energy):

Getting power out of the reactor

The inlet temperature, according to a specification sheet, is 355 degrees C. The outlet temperature is 510 degrees C. The outlet temperature is what is made available to the balance of plant. The reactor immersed in ambient pressure liquid sodium. The intermediate loop is also liquid sodium.

Transfer of heat to a turbine is being developed to use to Brayton Cycle which uses liquid CO2 yielding an expected 40% efficiency rate for heat transfer. However, Ali said the company is also working with turbine manufacturers to develop steam applications.

Answer on nonproliferation issues

In an answer to critics of nuclear energy who worry about bomb makers, Ali points out the fuel for the ARC-100 is sealed in the reactor, used for 20 years, and then returned to the factor, or a regional fuel center, for reprocessing. The customer doesn’t touch the fuel, stores any on-site, or manages the used materials.

“The customer never has access to the fuel.” Ali said.

According to the first phase design information provided by the company, the “fuel cartridge” is inserted in an underground portion of the reactor. There are no safety-related systems in the balance of plant. The reactor vessel installed underground and is 15 meters high with a diameter of about 7 meters. See conceptual image left.

The fuel itself is enriched to an average of 14% depending on customer requirements. The specifications for the fuel are found in a database developed for the EBR-II reactor which means extensive first-of-a-kind fuel testing required for some of the other fast reactor SMRs won’t be needed for the ARC-100.

“It is a proven metal-alloy fuel,” Ali said.

On the reprocessing side of the fuel cycle, creating new fuel for the ARC-100 does not involve separating pure plutonium that could be used in nuclear weapons. Instead, it keeps the plutonium mixed with other long-lived radioisotopes so that it cannot be used in making bombs.

Next steps

Ali said the company is now holding “pre-application discussions” with the NRC ahead of formally submitting the reactor for design certification. Ali did not indicate a date when the firm would formally submit a package to the NRC. _ISNN

White paper on ARC-100 at Google Docs

A pre-loaded nuclear fuel cartridge that provides reliable power for 20 years between cartridge changes goes a long way toward providing optimal safety and confidence in a power source.

This article from Idaho Samizdat was featured in the 7th Carnival of Nuclear Energy. Another article featured in the same carnival which is a very useful expansion of the above Idaho Samizdat article can be found at Capacity Factor. The Capacity Factor article also looks at competing designs for liquid metal fast reactors.

Previously published at Al Fin Energy

The Lifespan of These Homes is Measured in Centuries

Well-made monolithic domes, as described in the video, are expected to last for centuries. As described at the dometech.com website:

Lifespan
With the exterior protection of polyurethane insulation and the waterproof roof membrane, the steel reinforced concrete dome will not weather or decay. The life span of these buildings will be measured in centuries.
Strength
The monolithic concrete dome is probably the strongest building that can be built with a specific amount of time and materials. This means it has very high resistance to the natural forces of earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, and floods. _dometech

Monolithic domes are also relatively safe in a wildfire, due to the fireproof internal thin-shell construction. The external foam is apt to melt or burn unless protected by layers of fireproof material, but you should be safe inside the shell.

Another type of long-lived concrete home is built by Formworks, an example of which is pictured above.

The Formworks structural life-span is rated at 200-1000 years. That is five to ten times the structural life span of most homes. Plus - depending on what external features are chosen, the Formworks homeowner can reasonably expect a reduction of ninety-percent (90%) or more of the maintenance that is required on a conventional home of the same size. _formworks

Some experiences of people living in Formworks homes

Here is yet another type of concrete home from Conrad'sCastles:

Low maintenance.
With poured-in-place concrete walls, there are no worries about rotting wood, termites, or settling problems that can cause a lot of interior damage. This means you have fewer headaches, more money, and more enjoyable weekends!
Strength and safety for your family.
Because of the concrete structure, these homes survive fires, tornadoes, hurricanes, and even earthquakes. What more could you want for your family? This also means cheaper homeowner’s insurance.
Peace and quiet.
You won’t believe how little outside noise you will hear in a concrete home! Noise from traffic or the neighbors’ barking dogs is practically gone. _Conradscastles

An arched or domed shape provides strength and uninterrupted interior space. Earth sheltering on top of the concrete provides further protection from fire and weather, as long as proper water-proofing is used. Monolithic domes, for example, are strong enough to be buried beneath about 30 feet of earth.

Homes that can last up to 1,000 years may seem like overkill. Of course if you plan to live in a house the rest of your life, you may wish it to be practically indestructible.

Previously published at Al Fin, the Next Level

We Are Marching to Utopia . . . We Will Soon Be There!

...optimists and idealists -- with their ignorance about the truths of human nature and human society, and their naive hopes about what can be changed -- have wrought havoc for centuries....instead of utopian efforts to reform human society or human nature, we [should] focus on the only reform that we can truly master -- the improvement of ourselves through the cultivation of our better instincts. _OUP Review of "Uses of Pessimism"

Sure as I know anything, I know this - they will try again. Maybe on another world, maybe on this very ground swept clean. A year from now, ten? They'll swing back to the belief that they can make people... better. And I do not hold to that. _Captain Malcolm Reynolds

There is something deep in human nature which has resisted change -- despite the best efforts of crusaders, utopians, religionists, and wishful thinkers -- for many [tens of?] thousands of years. After countless failures to reform the human spirit, most utopians are unfazed. If they can only grab enough power and control over how resources are distributed, they are sure that they can bring perfection to the land, under their own benevolent leadership. "The land will heal, the sea levels will begin to subside, and every man will say to every other man, you are my brother." And so on.

Philosopher Roger Scruton -- author of The Uses of Pessimism -- takes a somewhat more reluctant view:

The belief that humanity makes moral progress depends upon a wilful ignorance of history. It also depends upon a wilful ignorance of oneself – a refusal to recognise the extent to which selfishness and calculation reside in the heart even of our most generous emotions, awaiting their chance. Those who invest their hopes in the moral improvement of humankind are therefore in a precarious position: at any moment the veil of illusion might be swept away, revealing the bare truth of the human condition. Either they defend themselves against this possibility with artful intellectual ploys, or they give way, in the moment of truth, to a paroxysm of disappointment and misanthropy. Both of these do violence to our nature. The first condemns us to the life of unreason; the second to the life of contempt.

...In order to see human beings as they are, therefore, and to school oneself in the art of loving them, it is necessary to apply a dose of pessimism to all one’s plans and aspirations. _GloomMerchant

In another piece, Scruton presents a paradoxical recommendation for how to teach children to think for themselves, logically and clearly:

...children are drawn to magic...they spontaneously animate their world with spirits and spells...they find relief and excitement in stories in which the heroes can summon supernatural forces to their aid and vanquish untold enemies – these facts reflect layers of deep settlement in the human psyche. But they also remind us that, in the life of the child, belief and imagination are not to be clearly distinguished, and that both serve other functions than the pursuit of truth.

...humanists should wake up to this point, and be careful when they seek to deprive their children of enchantment, or to replace their spontaneous fantasies with the cold hard facts of empirical science. It could well be that religion is a better discipline than pop science, when it comes to shaping the rational intellect, and that [we can offer our] children more in the way of a solid foundation, by anchoring their imagination in sacred stories and religious doctrines, than they are likely to be offered by those “Darwinian fairy tales’” as David Stove has called them, which have gained such currency in the wake of Dawkins and Hitchens.

In response to a child’s metaphysical curiosity grown-ups can say that everything has a scientific explanation. But they will know that this is a lie. The proposition that everything has a scientific explanation does not have a scientific explanation – it describes an amazing fact about our universe, a point where reasoning falls silent. There are many such points, as anyone who has children knows: why is there anything? Why should I be good? What existed before the Big Bang? What is consciousness? You can wrestle with these questions through philosophy, but science won’t answer them.

Children have an inkling of this. They also recognise that behind these questions lies a huge void – an emptiness which must be filled with love and reassurance, if their existence is not to seem like an accident. _Art_of_Certainty

Utopians try so hard to purge their children's minds of falsehood and "error", to create the perfect children of rational thought, capable of seeing through all the corrupt fables of the past. Except...children will be who they will be. You cannot make boys into girls or girls into boys without destroying who they are. And you cannot make humans into angels without ruining the essence of what they are. And still the utopians continue to try -- until they finally throw their hands up in complete exasperation at and condemnation of the utter evil of those who do not think along the same lines as themselves, the utopians.

The disgusted dismissal of homo rapiens and all his works that we find spelled out by John Gray in Straw Dogs is not a form of pessimism. It is an attempt to dismiss humanity entirely, as a kind of plague on the face of the earth. That kind of misanthropic nihilism is of no use to us. It removes the ground from all our values, and puts nothing in their place. _GloomMerchant

At that point, they often begin to plot and fantasize the great dieoff, to cleanse the otherwise pristine Earth of the incorrigible human demons who infest the lands and oceans. Fortunately, utopians are as incompetent in planning the great dieoff as they are in most other aspects of their lives.

The point is not to resist all change or improvement of humans. But any lasting change for the better is likely to happen from the bottom up, not from the top down.

Nothing illustrates the different approaches to a better world than the contrast between the French and American revolutions of the late 19th century.

The primary difference in causes that led to the American Revolution and the French Revolution was based in the world view of the innate goodness or innate evil of man. _Hyperhistory

Not all utopians believe in the innate goodness of men -- sometimes they only believe in the innate perfectibility of men. But utopias born of such ideas all come to a bitter end.

Every child has to learn to think for himself, from the beginning. But he must have a beginning from which to start.

The need for foundations is quite clearly an adaptation, and these foundations must provide the promise of protection and love, if they are to fit the new organism for its brief time in the world. If that is so, you are not going to eliminate the need for faith: the best you can do is to withhold all objects of faith, so that a child goes hungry into the life to which he or she is destined. More often than not, a humanist education will leave a child exposed to massive and mind-clogging superstitions of the Harry Potter and Star Wars kind. But these superstitions contain far less in the way of insight than is contained in the first chapter of Genesis.

Religious stories are also the result of natural selection – though selection at another level: they have come down to us because they have fulfilled a moral need. They have survived refutation because they contain, beneath their superficial falsehood, the moral truths that people need, when they must order their lives by good examples. _The Art of Certainty

This is true not only of religious stories, but of all the mythology and lasting moral fables from antiquity. Children must have some kind of foundation that transcends deductive logic, because that is how minds begin. Then, later, when they choose to either reshape or reaffirm their beliefs, they will have a sense of having decided for themselves, and feel stronger for it.

Yes, humans can make choices that make them better. Improved nutrition of mother and child can make humans stronger, smarter, taller, and sometimes capable of clearer thought. But a power structure that attempts to legislate morality, to engineer the moral and ideological purity of the human souls of its citizens -- that power structure is morally bankrupt, and deserves to die quickly. If it is allowed to continue, its leaders will eventually decide that the recalcitrant citizens do not deserve the benefit of the leaders' great wisdom. Then, beware.

This question has been acquiring an ever greater urgency over the past century -- even longer. It is now coming to a head in the demographic and economic crises of many of the world's most advanced nations. A culture that has rested on its own laurels, that has comforted itself with mental images of its own progressive improvement, is soon to be reawakened to a coarse and unruly history.

Previously published at Al Fin blog.

10 Foot Diameter Virtu-Sphere Virtual Reality in Las Vegas

PopSci
The first public VirtuSphere was installed in Las Vegas at the Excalibur Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas in May 2010. If the venture proves profitable, expect similar VR spheres to pop up in arcades, amusement parks, shopping malls, and tourist traps across North America. High throughput virtual reality may well lead to continent-wide leagues of virtual reality sports. The VirtuSphere is in the lead now, but inventors are sure to come up with virtual competitors soon.

The 10-foot sphere is made of the same plastic as Legos, and its curvature helps to cushion players if they fall. The ball spins on a platform fitted with 45 caster-mounted wheels. Beneath, an optical sensor tracks motion the same way a computer mouse does, watching for relative movement across x and y axes. To make the experience truly immersive, the player is fitted with a head-mounted display with two internal LCD screens. A laptop wirelessly collects the data from the sensor and the gyroscopes, magnetometers and accelerometers on the headset to create the image the player sees.
As new spheres pop up in malls and arcades, users will be able to jump into movie trailers or globe-trot using Google Earth. _PopSci

Obama is Death to the American Economy

Obama's Economic Policies Stifle Growth

The chairman of the Business Roundtable, an association of top corporate executives that has been President Obama's closest ally in the business community, accused the president and Democratic lawmakers Tuesday of creating an "increasingly hostile environment for investment and job creation."

Ivan G. Seidenberg, chief executive of Verizon Communications, said that Democrats in Washington are pursuing tax increases, policy changes and regulatory actions that together threaten to dampen economic growth and "harm our ability . . . to grow private-sector jobs in the U.S." _WaPo

Obama's anti growth and anti-private sector bias was evident two years ago. But it's nice that a few people are beginning to notice.

The Next Big Economic Crisis is the Default of State Bonds

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are sucking up Stimulus Funds and destroying the mortgage system of the US

Americans are losing hope in the Messiah of hope and change

President Obama is an incompetent, inexperienced, clown of a child-in-man's-clothing. Only an idiot could have ever expected him to put the country on a sound economic footing.

Fresh Water from the Sea: Cheap, Clean, Abundant

The surface of Earth is 70% seawater. There would be a lot more seacoast available for human settlement if only more freshwater for drinking and plant cultivation were available. Desalination is the sensible answer, but desalination requires a lot of energy. New approaches to cheaper desalination promise to open up a lot more of the oceans and seacoasts to human settlement.

Brian Wang provides a look at a new desalination technology from Saltwork Technologies that promises to reduce the energy costs of desalination by up to 80%.

Canadian scientists from Saltworks Technologies have recently discovered a new technology for water desalination. The process reduces the electrical energy consumption needed by the process by 70%. Saltworks Technologies reported that they can produce 1 cubic meter of fresh water using just 1kWh compared to 3.7kWh per cubic meter achievable using reverse osmosis.
But how does the actual technology really work? Simple: solar heat or waste heat is used to evaporate water and concentrate salt water. As a fact, solar energy is converted into osmotic energy and the resulted osmotic energy is used to desalinate water. The concentrated salt water is exposed to two separate solutions of regular salt water via two different ‘bridges’, one which is porous to chloride ion and the other which is porous to sodium ions.

Sodium and chloride ion are able to migrated across the bridges into the salt water solution. The two elements have the role to equalize the difference in ion concentration between the two solutions. In this way the two solutions get charged positively with the sodium ions and negatively with the chloride ion. To continue the process, the resulted solutions are exposed across two similar bridges to the water to be desalinated.
Sodium ions are attracted into the chloride solution and chloride ions into the sodium solution (different changes attract themselves) resulting desalination. The 1kWh energy used in the process for 1 cubic meter of water, comes mainly from pumping fluids around the pipework. To reduce costs, plastic pipes can be used instead of steel pipes as the system in not working under high pressure. _GreenOptimist_via_BrianWang

More approaches to cheaper desalination from NextBigFuture:

Dais Analytic

Dais Analytic’s “new generation of desalination technology” concentrates on desalination by molecular diffusion. This low-cost, pressure desalination process uses commercialized nanotechnology, and employs a solid polymer membrane to reject dissolved solids by size, polarity and diffusion concentration, leaving fewer than 100 PPM TDS. The Dais “MD” membrane does not foul or need regeneration, nor does it scale or support marine growth, making it a viable option where environmental concerns are uppermost. It can be used in applications with capacities of up to 10,000m3/d.

NanoH20

NanoH20 has developed a membrane that attracts water molecules and repels other types of molecules, thus speeding up the desalination process. A membrane that uses nanotechnology to separate pure water from seawater at a lower energy cost than existing reverse osmosis membranes. NanoH2O’s next generation reverse osmosis membranes are thin-film composite membranes that contain nano-structured material. Their enhanced permeability should enable dramatic improvements to be made in the process economics of seawater reverse osmosis. NanoH2O claims that their thin-film nanocomposite membranes will allow 10-15% to be shaved off the cost of producing potable grade water. The company aims to have its first commercial product available within 18-24 months. Research into the application of the technology in brackish water and fresh water scenarios is planned to follow from 2009, making the product suitable for a variety of desalination and water reuse applications.

Clathrate Desalination (Mouchel and Water Science)

A joint venture between Mouchel and Water Science has come up with a new approach to separating fresh water from seawater based on trapping water molecules in carbon dioxide molecules as clathrates. Carbon dioxide forms a clathrate with water spontaneously at more than 30 bar pressure and less than 80 degrees Celcius temperature. The new multipass solution developed by the team for separating and cleaning the clathrate crystals holds the key to the concept’s main attraction – ultra-low energy use. The breakthrough system is predicted to reduce energy consumption to below 1.3 kWh/m3, with the thermodynamics of salt solutions providing the simple explanation behind the baseline economics. The goal is to apply the technology in large-scale industrial desalination plants, remote desalination facilities using renewable energy, and in the oil & gas sector, for the treatment of waste well water.

Light of Future Night

This LED light bulb is packed full of rechargeable batteries, so that if the power goes down, you will still have 2 hours of light. Or just unscrew the bulb and use it as a flashlight. Source_Engadget

Light Up the Night With Your Heavy Breathing!

These unique algae-powered glow-lamps are charged by sunlight in the day, then fueled by your own CO2 at night. So do something that will cause you to breathe fast and heavy. Your algae will thank you for it.

Inspired by recent research into harnessing energy directly from plants, Netherlands-based designer Mike Thompson has come up with a concept for an algae powered lamp that runs on only sunlight, water and your breath.

Called the Latro (latin for thief), Thompson's concept design consists of a conical jar with a spout and a cross between a handle and a built-in straw at the top. Water is added through the spout, CO2 is added by breathing through the handle, sunlight enters from all sides and everything is in place to harvest energy from the algae. _Gizmag

Humans have used microbes to produce food and drink for several thousand years. Microbial fuels are destined to replace petroleum within 50 years. Why not also use microbes to produce electricity, and light? It is a microbial world.

Rise of Lunar Self-Replicating Robots

Japan is planning a $2.2 billion robot colonising mission to the moon. Giant robots will be delivered to the lunar surface, where they will set about building an unmanned lunar base.

As forward thinking as the Japanese robot mission to Luna may seem, it would be more sustainable if the robots were capable of self-replicating. The hobby replicator enterprise is rapidly evolving and expanding, with some desktop replicators able to build as many as half of all their replacement parts.

It is not so important that each machine be able to replicate itself. Instead, think of colonies of complementary machines, capable of making some of their own replacement parts along with replacement parts for other types of machines. Maintenance and controller machines would be given top time and resource priority, under the discipline of a type of "machine economics."

Speaking of space travel, private space launch company SpaceX plans its debut launch for its Falcon 9 rocket tomorrow, June 4.

The one major hurdle left before the fledgling rocket can attempt to launch is final approval of its flight termination system (FTS), an explosive charge that would destroy the rocket if it flew off course. Both SpaceX and the U.S. air force, which monitors the launch area, must be confident that the system works before Falcon 9 can lift off.

"We are now looking good for final approval of the FTS by this Friday, June 4th, just in time for our first launch attempt," SpaceX officials said in a Tuesday statement.

This test version of Falcon 9 will carry a mockup of SpaceX's Dragon capsule, which is designed to carry cargo, and eventually humans, to the International Space Station. This SPACE.com graphic shows how SpaceX's Falcon 9 and Dragon stack up to other rockets. _Space

Best wishes for a successful launch!

Surviving: A Compulsion to Prepare for the Worst

"People are waking up to the fact that they cannot always rely on outside sources for their personal safety and survival," Tom Martin, CEO of the American Preppers Network, tells Asylum.

"A 'sh** hit the fan' scenario happens to just about everyone sometime in their life," he says. "Preparing and having a 'prepper' mindset will lessen the impact of whatever disaster it may be that you might experience in your life."

...there is a posse of self-sufficient men and women out there who make it their goal to be prepared when disaster strikes. They call themselves "preppers."

From natural catastrophes to economic meltdowns to nuclear blowouts, the preppers' collective goal is quite simple: to carry on as usual, even when catastrophe strikes.

Over recent years, a huge community of preppers has developed. Perform a simple Google search and you'll turn up plenty of prepper-related stuff, including the Web television portalPrepper TV, survival blogs, podcasts (such as DoctorPrepper and PrepperPodcast), andforums that cover everything from a woman's perspective to recycling to how to handle dead bodies.

There's even a rash of YouTube videos offering tutorials on such topics as how to construct your own nuclear bomb shelter, what firearms you should own, and how to earthquake-proof your stored food.
_Asylum

h/t SurvivalBlog

The idea is to have the tools, supplies, and skills to make it to the other side of whatever crisis is likely to pop up.  If you last longer than everyone else in your part of town, and you are running out of supplies, it will be okay to scavenge a bit in your local neighborhood.  But be careful of other scavengers who may be of the "shoot first and ask questions later" variety.

Ironically, while it is largely leftists who frequent the dieoff.org sites and who pine for the killing off of 90% of the human population of the planet, it is more likely to be the more independent and apolitical persons who will be in the best position to see the far side of catastrophe.  Most leftists -- typically incompetent pseudo-intellectuals -- will not have what it takes to make it.

750,000 Concrete Mushroom Bunkers from Commie Paranoia Days

Concrete Mushrooms Preview - Albania's 750,000 inherited bunkers. from Concrete Mushrooms on Vimeo.
Back in the commie paranoia days of Albania's Enver Hoxha, the fear of invasion from imperialist capitalist outsiders was topmost in the mind of leadership. To better defend Albania from the hordes of capitalists who were massing at the gates, Hoxha built hundreds of thousands of concrete mushroom bunkers. Many years later, now, and the invasion never came. So what does the dirt-poor country of Albania do with almost a million concrete mushroom bunkers?

Some people are creating hotels and resorts from the lumps of concrete. Others turn the monstrosities into wineries or restaurants. Let your imagination run wild. The mushrooms are there. You may as well think of a use for them.

H/T and photo credit: ImpactLab