Real Aliens Do Not Look Like Prawns

Penn material scientists turn light into electrical current using a golden nanoscale system

Material scientists at the Nano/Bio Interface Center of the University of Pennsylvania have demonstrated the transduction of optical radiation to electrical current in a molecular circuit. The system, an array of nano-sized molecules of gold, respond to electromagnetic waves by creating surface plasmons that induce and project electrical current across molecules, similar to that of photovoltaic solar cells.

The results may provide a technological approach for higher efficiency energy harvesting with a nano-sized circuit that can power itself, potentially through sunlight. Recently, surface plasmons have been engineered into a variety of light-activated devices such as biosensors.

It is also possible that the system could be used for computer data storage. While the traditional computer processor represents data in binary form, either on or off, a computer that used such photovoltaic circuits could store data corresponding to wavelengths of light.

Because molecular compounds exhibit a wide range of optical and electrical properties, the strategies for fabrication, testing and analysis elucidated in this study can form the basis of a new set of devices in which plasmon-controlled electrical properties of single molecules could be designed with wide implications to plasmonic circuits and optoelectronic and energy-harvesting devices.

Dawn Bonnell, a professor of materials science and the director of the Nano/Bio Interface Center at Penn, and colleagues fabricated an array of light sensitive, gold nanoparticles, linking them on a glass substrate. Minimizing the space between the nanoparticles to an optimal distance, researchers used optical radiation to excite conductive electrons, called plasmons, to ride the surface of the gold nanoparticles and focus light to the junction where the molecules are connected. The plasmon effect increases the efficiency of current production in the molecule by a factor of 400 to 2000 percent, which can then be transported through the network to the outside world.

In the case where the optical radiation excites a surface plasmon and the nanoparticles are optimally coupled, a large electromagnetic field is established between the particles and captured by gold nanoparticles. The particles then couple to one another, forming a percolative path across opposing electrodes. The size, shape and separation can be tailored to engineer the region of focused light. When the size, shape and separation of the particles are optimized to produce a “resonant” optical antennae, enhancement factors of thousands might result.

Furthermore, the team demonstrated that the magnitude of the photoconductivity of the plasmon-coupled nanoparticles can be tuned independently of the optical characteristics of the molecule, a result that has significant implications for future nanoscale optoelectronic devices.

“If the efficiency of the system could be scaled up without any additional, unforeseen limitations, we could conceivably manufacture a one-amp, one-volt sample the diameter of a human hair and an inch long,” Bonnell said.

via Penn material scientists turn light into electrical current using a golden nanoscale system.

China decries Barack Obama’s plan to meet Dalai Lama

China has again urged the United States to cancel a planned meeting between President Barack Obama and the Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama.

The two men will meet at the White House on 18 February, US spokesman Robert Gibbs has confirmed.

He said the Sino-US relationship was mature enough to disagree while finding common ground on international issues.

China had already said that such a meeting would seriously undermine relations with the United States.

Mr Gibbs said the Dalai Lama was “an internationally respected religious leader”.

“He’s a spokesman for Tibetan rights. The president looks forward to an engaging and constructive meeting,” he said.

“We think we have a mature enough relationship with the Chinese that we can agree on mutual interests, but also have a mature enough relationship that we know the two countries are not always going to agree on everything.”

China reacted quickly to the announcement through its Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu.

“We firmly oppose the Dalai Lama visiting the United States and US leaders having contact with him,” Mr Ma said.

“We urge the US side to fully understand the high sensitivity of Tibet-related issues, and honour its commitment to recognise Tibet as part of China and to oppose ‘Tibet independence’,” he added.

“China urges the US… to immediately call off the wrong decision of arranging for President Obama to meet with the Dalai Lama… to avoid any more damage to Sino-US relations.” …

via BBC News – China decries Barack Obama’s plan to meet Dalai Lama.

Does China not understand how the USA came to exist in the first place? We exist because the King George III of England was a tyrannical a control freak  tax-o-holic (as are some Brits today. see 100% death tax) and we demanded, fought for, and won our independence. What is the deal with Tibet?

Image: Chinese sign: “Police Attention: No distributing any unhealthy thoughts or objects.” Nyalam, Tibet, 1993.

Tibet is situated between the two ancient civilizations of China and India, separated from the former by the mountain ranges to the east of the Tibetan Plateau and from the latter by the towering Himalayas. Tibet is nicknamed “the roof of the world” or “the land of snows”. …

Following the Lhasa uprising and the Dalai Lama’s flight from Tibet in 1959, the government of India was politically pressured by Britain and US to accept the Tibetan refugees. India designated land for the refugees in the mountainous region of Dharamsala, India, where the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan government in exile are now based.

The plight of the Tibetan refugees garnered international attention when the Dalai Lama, spiritual and religious leader of the Tibetan government in exile, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989. The Dalai Lama was awarded the Nobel Prize on the basis of his unswerving commitment to peaceful protest against the Chinese occupation of Tibet.

He is highly regarded as a result and has since been received by government leaders throughout the world. Among the most recent ceremonies and awards, he was given the Congressional Gold Medal by President Bush in 2007, and in 2006 he was one of only three people to ever receive an honorary Canadian citizenship (see [3]. The PRC consistently protests each official contact with the exiled Tibetan leader.

The community of Tibetans in exile established in Dharamsala and Karnataka, South India, has expanded since 1959. Tibetans have duplicated Tibetan monasteries in India and now house tens of thousands of monks. They have also created Tibetan schools, hospitals, and published the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives—all aimed at continuing Tibetan tradition and culture. Tibetan festivals such as Lama dances, celebration of Losar, the Tibetan New Year, and the Monlam continue in exile. …
- wikipedia history of Tibet

MI5 knew about torture of Binyam Mohamed and terror suspects

The U.S. has warned its relationship with Britain has been harmed by the court ruling that revealed Guantanamo Bay detainee Binyam Mohamed was tortured at the behest of American authorities.

The White House expressed dismay after the Government lost its bid to suppress the documents which showed MI5 knew about the treatment of Mohamed.

It declared that it was ‘deeply disappointed’ by the ruling and warned it would make intelligence sharing with Britain more difficult.

Spokesman Ben LaBolt said: ‘We shared this information in confidence and with certain expectations. As we warned, the court’s judgment will complicate the confidentiality of our intelligence-sharing relationship with the UK, and it will have to factor into our decision-making going forward.’

In Washington, a statement by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Dennis Blair, said the ruling was ‘not helpful’.

It said: ‘The protection of confidential information is essential to strong, effective security and intelligence cooperation among allies.

‘The decision by a United Kingdom court to release classified information provided by the US is not helpful, and we deeply regret it.’

On a day of high drama yesterday, it emerged the Government had tried to suppress a senior judge’s verdict that Britain colluded in torture.

The Master of the Rolls, Lord Neuberger, effectively accused MI5 of complicity in torture and having a culture of disregarding human rights.

The explosive disclosure was a serious blow to Foreign Secretary David Miliband on a day of high drama.

It began when the Foreign Office was yesterday forced to publish evidence which he had battled to suppress through the courts, showing that MI5 knew the British Guantanamo Bay detainee Binyam Mohamed had been tortured at the behest of the U.S. authorities. …

‘They cut all over my private parts,’ he wrote in his diary. ‘One of them said it would be better just to cut it off, as I would only breed terrorists.’

Ethiopian-born Mohamed, now 31, arrived in London in 1994 as a schoolboy seeking asylum. He was refused refugee status but granted exceptional leave to remain in 2000.

He studied electrical and electronic engineering and got a job as a caretaker. He also converted to Islam and attended a mosque frequented by radical Muslims.

In 2001 he went to Afghanistan. He said he had experimented with drugs, heroin and crack cocaine, and went there to get away from a ‘bad crowd’, kick the habit and see if the Taliban had produced a good Muslim country.

The U.S. alleged that he received paramilitary training at an Al Qaeda training camp, fought for the Taliban and plotted to detonate a radioactive ‘dirty bomb’ in America.

It claimed he was cherry-picked by Al Qaeda because of his UK residency, and received firearms and explosives training alongside British shoe bomber Richard Reid.

Mohamed denies all the allegations and says that he confessed to anything his torturers wanted him to say. … Mohamed says that under torture he told his interrogators that 9/11 planner Khalid Shaikh Mohammed had given him the false British passport and that he had met Osama Bin Laden 30 times. ‘None of it was true.’ …

via MI5 knew about torture of Binyam Mohamed and terror suspects | Mail Online.

Our good friends the British have just confirmed what destroyed torture videos would have confirmed, that George Bush lied when he said we do not torture. The US response? We are upset that they told the truth.

People lie to stop torture. We’ve known that for ages.

Now we know something new. We know now that President’s and the military lie about the fact that they torture people.

This should be reason enough to close all military run prisons.  They have failed the public trust. Furthermore, they have failed to identify those who did the torture, and they have failed to removed the people responsible for the lies after they were made public. Therefore, they should lose all responsibility in this area. Were any of the children prisoners at Gitmo tortured? We have no way to know because of lies.  Your tax-dollars are used for this. You should not look the other way. Close all military prisons and hold public hearings. Reorganize and provide checks and balances. Give nice big incentives to whistle-blowers, for one.

Next, trust but verify that the people in our government who wish Osama Bin Laden would kill Americans are not plotting to kill Americans and then blame it on Osama or other extremists. (See anthrax conspiracy. )

Few Americans Want Members of Congress Re-Elected, Poll Finds

Just 8 percent of Americans want the members of Congress re-elected, according to a CBS News-New York Times poll taken nine months before roughly one-third of the Senate and the entire House face voters.

The Feb. 5-10 survey found 81 percent of respondents saying the lawmakers shouldn’t receive another term.

By 80 percent to 13 percent, Americans said members of Congress are more interested in serving special interests than the people they represent.

Also, 75 percent disapproved of the job Congress is doing, the highest level since 74 percent said they disapproved in October 2008. Congress’s job approval rating was 15 percent in the current survey; it was 12 percent in October 2008.

The new poll of 1,084 adults had a margin of error of plus- or-minus 3 percentage points.

Half of those surveyed said they wanted to abolish the filibuster in the U.S. Senate, the procedural move by which bills can be stalled unless 60 lawmakers vote to shut off debate, while 44 percent disagreed.

via Few Americans Want Members of Congress Re-Elected, Poll Finds – Yahoo! News.

Congress is the opposite of progress. Science is making great progress, but politically and morally, we are slipping when “anyone, anywhere may be abducted, secretly imprisoned, tortured, and murdered in cold blood.”

Helicopter pilot’s frightening flight: Turkey vulture smashes into chopper, lands on his lap

A helicopter pilot in Miami picked up an unexpected passenger mid-flight last week – a turkey vulture that crashed through his windshield.

Paul Appleton and a friend were flying to Sun Life Stadium to shoot video before the Super Bowl when the bird abruptly dropped in.

“I had seen a turkey buzzard a little bit [in front of] my aircraft,” Appleton told WLBZ 2. “I lost sight of it for a second, and then I heard a boom.”

The bird smashed through front of the windshield, landing on Appleton in the cockpit.

“All of a sudden, I have a turkey vulture sitting on my lap, up against my chest, and on my forearm,” said Appleton, adding that he suffered a minor scratch to his forehead, and his headset and glasses were partially knocked off.

His friend, sitting next to him, shot video of the turkey as it remained awake, but largely still.

“It was a pretty big bird,” Appleton said.

He counted himself and his passenger fortunate that they remained in the air.

“I was lucky the buzzard didn’t knock my hand off the controls,” Appleton said, noting they were flying 80 to 90 mph with the wind whipping around inside the chopper through the gaping hole.

The bird remained on his lap during the 20-mile ride until he landed the aircraft.

Once the helicopter was back on the ground, the bird flew away. Appleton called for an animal control ambulance, but by then the bird was gone.

via Helicopter pilot’s frightening flight: Turkey vulture smashes into chopper, lands on his lap.

Selective brain damage modulates human spirituality, research reveals

New research provides fascinating insight into brain changes that might underlie alterations in spiritual and religious attitudes. The study, published by Cell Press in the February 11 issue of the journal Neuron, explores the neural basis of spirituality by studying patients before and after surgery to remove a brain tumor.

Although it is well established that all behaviors and experiences, spiritual or otherwise, must originate in the brain, true empirical exploration of the neural underpinnings of spirituality has been challenging. However, recent advances in neuroscience have started to make the complex mental processes associated with religion and spirituality more accessible.

“Neuroimaging studies have linked activity within a large network in the brain that connects the frontal, parietal, and temporal cortexes with spiritual experiences, but information on the causative link between such a network and spirituality is lacking,” explains lead study author, Dr. Cosimo Urgesi from the University of Udine in Italy.

Dr. Urgesi and colleagues were interested in making a direct link between brain activity and spirituality. They focused specifically on the personality trait called self-transcendence (ST), which is thought to be a measure of spiritual feeling, thinking, and behaviors in humans. ST reflects a decreased sense of self and an ability to identify one’s self as an integral part of the universe as a whole.

… “If a stable personality trait like ST can undergo fast changes as a consequence of brain lesions, it would indicate that at least some personality dimensions may be modified by influencing neural activity in specific areas,” suggests Dr. Salvatore M. Aglioti from Sapienza University of Rome. “Perhaps novel approaches aimed at modulating neural activity might ultimately pave the way to new treatments of personality disorders.”

The researchers include Cosimo Urgesi, Universita` di Udine, Udine, Italy, Istituto di Ricovero e Cura a Carattere Scientifico Eugenio Medea, Pordenone, Italy; Salvatore M. Aglioti, Sapienza Universita` di Roma, Roma, Italy, Istituto di Ricovero e Cura a Carattere Scientifico Fondazione S. Lucia, Roma, Italy; Miran Skrap, Azienda Ospedaliero-Universitaria Santa Maria della Misericordia, Udine, Italy; and Franco Fabbro, Universita` di Udine, Udine, Italy, Istituto di Ricovero e Cura a Carattere Scientifico Eugenio Medea, Pordenone, Italy.

via Selective brain damage modulates human spirituality, research reveals.

UFO sceptic has close encounter with ‘alien’ on Phear Park bowling green

Mothership? A drawing by Roy Shaw of the UFO he saw in Exmouth, Devon. He said it was about 100ft long, with flashing lights. He was at a loss to explain it

A UFO sceptic was left terrified and running away so quickly he twisted his ankle, after seeing a mysterious craft and an otherworldly figure in Exmouth’s aptly-named Phear Park.

Retired engineer Roy Shaw was taking a night-time stroll with his dog, Sydney, when the close encounter happened.

He said: ‘The object was round, about 30ft in diameter and 100ft long, with blue and red flashing lights on its perimeter.

‘It appeared to land at the top end of the park by the bowling green. My dog started to growl when what I can only describe as a white shape came towards us.

Hello Spaceboy: Roy’s picture of the ‘white shape’ that approached him

‘It was about 4ft high and seemed to be translucent and moved very slowly towards us. I was transfixed because it made a droning noise, which sounded like “my, my”.’

Devon UFO expert Nigel Wright said: ‘This is a close encounter of the third kind – encountering an occupant of a UFO in close proximity to the craft. This is a really important sighting.’

However, Mr Shaw said he remained a sceptic and was at a loss to explain Saturday’s incident.

via UFO sceptic has close encounter with ‘alien’ on Phear Park bowling green | Metro.co.uk.

We’ve replaced Mr. Roy Shaw’s dog with an alien. Will he notice? Tune in next week to find out. Anyone have more details?

Something from space hits ground and leaves 100ft wide crater in Mexico

A meteorite has smashed into the ground in Mexico, leaving a 30 meter (100 feet) wide crater, reports said. The meteorite impact was in the Ahuazotepec Municipality in Central Mexico between the cities of Puebla and Hidalgo. The precise impact area of the meteorite was in a relatively unpopulated area and hit around 6.30pm local time, Mexican media said. The Ahuazotepec, Mexico meteorite impact was so massive it broke windows in homes many kilometers from the epicenter and people reported buildings swaying and mass confusion. Other reports said the Mexico meteorite impact partially damaged a road and a bridge. The Mexican military was called in to lock down the area where the apparent space rock slammed into the ground. Initial fears where that the impact was a aircraft crashing to the ground, but that report was later dismissed. The Central Mexico meteorite event was witnessed by countless people in the region of the impact, with people as far away as Mexico City saying they saw the burning object enter the atmosphere.

via Cosmic Event – Middle-America – Mexico – Cosmic Event – ubAlert.

iMAGE: Latitude:   20° 2’51.92″N, Longitude:    98°14’22.25″W

A LOUD explosion and ball of fire that people in central Mexico reported seeing in the sky was actually a Russian satellite plunging back to earth, experts said. “We think it was the space wreckage of a Russian satellite that was catalogued by the Department of Defense of the United States and which we knew could pass over Mexican territory,” engineer Fernando de la Peno said.

Mr De la Peno is also a chief proponent of establishing a Mexican space agency.

Reports of a large meteorite reached Mexican media and police on Wednesday from the Hidalgo and Puebla states.

Many said they felt the ground shake with the blast and some reported seeing a huge crater on the ground blown out by the fiery object.

But nothing was found after a through search of the area yesterday.

Mr De la Pena said the space debris was likely the Cosmos 2421 reconnaissance satellite launched by the Russian Navy in June 2006 that malfunctioned and broke apart into 15 pieces two years later.

-heraldsun

Russia farmer convicted of planting landmines in field

A Russian farmer has been convicted of planting landmines around his field to ward off trespassers.

Alexander Skopintsev, from the eastern region of Primorye near China’s border, laid the three devices on his land after building them in his garage.

The 73-year-old had apparently been concerned about the frequent theft of potatoes from his farm.

He was arrested after an intruder set off one of the tripwire-style mines in August and was injured in the blast.

Skopintsev was convicted for the unlawful construction and storage of weapons and received a two-and-a-half year suspended sentence.

“Skopintsev testified that he had prepared the explosive devices to protect his garden against thieves,” regional prosecutors said in a statement reported by RIA-Novosti news agency.

via BBC News – Russia farmer convicted of planting landmines in field.

What do you think? Should it be legal to do this?

Which James Bond movie had his car explode when a thief tried to steal it?