THE FACADE

Hydrogen Power on the Cheap--Or at Least, Cheaper

2008-08-01T05:25:00.000-07:00

The fuel of the future could be hydrogen—if it can be made cheaply enough. Currently, electrolyzers (machines that split water into its constituent hydrogen and oxygen) need a catalyst, namely platinum, to run; ditto fuel cells to recombine that hydrogen with oxygen, which produces electricity. The problem is that the precious metal costs about $1,700 to $2,000 per ounce, which means that hydrogen would be an uneconomical fuel source unless a less costly catalyst can be found. But researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.) and Monash University in Australia report in Science today that they may have a cost-effective solution.

Chemist Daniel Nocera, head of the M.I.T.'s Solar Revolution Project, focused on one side of the equation: splitting water into its constituent hydrogen and oxygen molecules. This can be done well, but it remains difficult to actually separate the molecules. But Nocera and postdoctoral fellow Matthew Kanan discovered it could be accomplished by simply adding the metals cobalt and phosphate to water and running a current through it. In contrast to platinum, cobalt and phosphate cost roughly $2.25 an ounce and $.05 an ounce, respectively.

"We [have] figured out a way just using a glass of water at room temperature, under atmospheric pressure," Nocera says. "This thing [a thin film of cobalt and phosphate on an electrode] just churns away making [oxygen] from water."

Inspiration for the new catalyst came from nature; Nocera studied the chain of processes that take place during photosynthesis, such as how plants use the energy from sunlight to rearrange water's chemical bonds. In a future hydrogen economy, he imagines, a house would function much like a leaf does, using the sun to power household electricity and to break down water into fuel—a sort of artificial photosynthesis.

According to John Turner, a research fellow at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colo., who was not involved in the research, the discovery could reduce the need for platinum in a conventional electrolyzer. He believes it could also play a role in a future large-scale hydrogen generator, which would collect the energy from sunlight in huge fields and then run that electric current through water to produce vast amounts of hydrogen to meet, for example, the demand from a future fleet of hydrogen-powered vehicles. "That's what his advance is pointing towards," he says, "finding an alternative catalyst that will allow us to do oxygen evolution (breaking the bonds of water or H2O and forming oxygen) in concert with hydrogen" on a grand scale.

But that still leaves plenty of platinum in the other side of the equation: the fuel cells that combine hydrogen and oxygen back into water to harvest electricity. Chemist Bjorn Winther-Jensen of Monash University in Australia and his colleagues addressed that problem by developing new electrodes for fuel cells made from a special conducting polymer, that costs around $57 per counce.

During experiments, the polymer proved just as effective as platinum at harvesting electricity—and the work could prove immediately relevant in mini fuel cells, such as the kind that are being designed for computers.

In order for this to work on the grand scale of a fuel cell stack for a hydrogen vehicle or power plant "we need to develop a more three-dimensional structure to get thicker electrodes and a higher current per square centimeter," says Winther-Jensen. Regardless, by reducing or eliminating platinum, the two studies help pave the way for a future hydrogen economy.

DO YOU KNOW YOUR LUCKY NUMBER ?

2008-08-01T03:32:00.000-07:00

The science of numbers is probably as old as the history of human thought. Many believe human existence, behavior and thought to be the vehicle of divine expression, and it is possible by applying the science of numbers to learn the laws of divine expression and derive an understanding of the constitution of the Universe, right down to the most trivial happening in its evolutionary progress.

Schools of numerological thought have it that by following certain principles, terminology and signification, it is possible to trace the relation between man and the universe; they also caution that any such exercise would be mystical in nature.

THE KEY NUMBER:

The key to this study lies in finding the corresponding number to a man; a fundamental axiom of numerology is that each one of us can be constitutionally equated to a single-digit number. Once the key number of a person is established, the background knowledge of that number class, behavioral characteristics can be applied to conduct our daily lives in a more productive fashion.

For instance, if your number is 2 then it is known that you have “sympathetic vibratory relations’ with persons whose numbers are 1,3,4 and 9 and in intimate relations with persons whose numbers are 2 and 7. It is also known to numerologists that you are not likely to prosper or effectively work out your destiny in association with persons with whom you are not numerically compatible. On the contrary, by aligning yourself with people with compatible key numbers you can reinforce your power and increase your fortunes.

PROFITING WITH NUMBERS:

If you believe this system works, you could equip yourself with background knowledge and profit in many ways – you could, for instance, select a lucky day to transact important business, you could select a house or a spouse, going by the agreement of numbers.

Profounders of numerology hold the theory that the man who acquires a firm grasp of the numbers science and applies them intelligently is better equipped to succeed in life than the one who lives in ignorance of the laws. They concur that, by applying the laws, it would be possible to trace the law of vibration, periodicity of events, and how both of those relate to matters of common human interest. The science of numerology originated in the dim and distant past; ancient civilizations have identified numbers with certain forces and the wise of the past have left a treasure trove of knowledge in many countries in the world.

FOR KIDS: Homework blues

2008-08-01T03:28:00.000-07:00

A good mood may not be so great for school work

Homework can put you in a bad mood, and that might actually be a good thing. New research suggests that, in some cases, being too happy can hurt your performance on certain kinds of tasks.

Researchers from the University of Plymouth in England wondered whether mood might affect the way kids learn. To find out, they performed two learning experiments with children.

The first experiment enlisted 30 kids, ages 10 and 11. Each child was given 20 problems in which a triangle or houselike shape was hidden inside a different, larger image. The kids had to find the small shape while sitting in a room with either upbeat or gloomy classical music playing in the background.

As a measure of mood, the scientists asked the kids to point to one of five faces, ranging from happy to sad. Children listening to the upbeat music tended to point to the smiley faces, indicating that they felt happy. Kids surrounded by gloomy tunes pointed instead to the frowns.

The researchers found that sad kids took at least a second less to find the small shapes. The gloomy kids also correctly identified an average of three or four more shapes.

In the second experiment, 61 children, ages 6 and 7, faced the same type of shape-finding problems. Instead of listening to different types of music, though, they watched one of three scenes from an animated film. One scene was happy. One was neutral. One was sad.

In this study, kids’ moods tended to reflect the scene they had seen.. And just like in the first experiment, kids who felt sad or neutral performed better on the tests compared to happier kids. They solved an average of two or three more problems.

The researchers hypothesize that feeling down makes people more aware of details, perhaps because sadness makes us more likely to focus on a problem or difficult situation. Some studies suggest that mildly sad adults do better than happy ones on tests of memory, judgment and persuasive argument that involve attention to detail.

Not all scientists agree with these conclusions, however. Other studies suggest that people who feel happy are better able to switch between focusing on details and focusing on the big picture. And the new studies have flaws, critics say. It’s possible, for example, that lively music in the first experiment distracted kids from finding shapes.

While scientists work on sorting out the answers, it still might be worth tailoring your tasks to your mood. After eating a yummy bowl of ice cream, for instance, write an essay. Save the math problems for after you’ve been told you can’t have seconds.

Found in: Science News For Kids

Calcium’s possible role in Alzheimer’s

2008-08-01T03:24:00.000-07:00

A new study in mice finds that plaques associated with Alzheimer’s wreak havoc on calcium’s role in cell signaling.

Careful journalists write that Alzheimer’s disease is associated with the characteristic plaques in patients’ brains, never that it’s caused by those plaques.

Scientists have been uncertain whether these plaques actually cause the memory impairment typical of the disease, but new research on mice suggests that calcium could link the plaques to nerve-cell dysfunction.

“It’s the first evidence that calcium can be affected by [plaques] in areas that are important for synapse formation and learning and memory,” comments Alzheimer’s disease expert Kim Green of the University of California, Irvine, who cowrote a review article published with the new research in the July 31 Neuron.

“Apparently the calcium is playing a very, very important role,” comments Bharat Aggarwal, an expert in cell signaling and inflammation at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. The research “provides us more targets for finding treatments for the disease.”

Calcium ions, positively charged calcium atoms, relay signals that control many functions within cells and between neighboring cells. Previous research suggested that calcium might be involved in Alzheimer’s disease, but scientists didn’t have any evidence from living animals.

In the new experiments, Brian Bacskai and his colleagues at Massachusetts General Hospital in Charlestown, Mass. compared two kinds of mice having Alzheimer’s-like conditions to healthy mice. Calcium in the brains of healthy mice was tightly controlled, but plaques in diseased mice elevated the levels of calcium in nerve cells, Bacskai’s team found. Nerve cells closest to the plaques were the most affected.

The researchers also looked at the effects of this calcium imbalance on the cells’ functioning. High calcium levels caused the “wires” between neurons to become malformed, the scientists report.

“The neuron is still alive, it’s just not communicating effectively, which could lead to the cognitive impairment,” Green says.

Abnormal calcium levels might also disrupt the creation of synapses, the tiny gaps across which neuron wires communicate. Forming new synapses is one way that scientists think neurons store new memories.

“There’s little doubt that calcium can change what synapses can do,” comments George Augustine, an expert on calcium signaling in neurons at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, N.C.

However, the new research does not show how the plaques raise calcium levels in the nearby neurons. And scientists don't yet know whether this calcium link in mouse brains also exists in people with the disease.

Found in: Body & Brain and Genes & Cells

Wake-up call for sleep apnea

2008-08-01T02:58:00.000-07:00

The constant stress of "fight-or-flight" mode out of deep sleep may exacerbate other health problems over time.

A common breathing disorder that disrupts sleep also, over time, increases the risk of death, a study in the August Sleep suggests. But people who use a nighttime breathing apparatus face less risk, the research shows.

Obstructive sleep apnea is a disorder marked by gaps in breathing during sleep that rob the blood of oxygen until a person gasps for air. People with apnea stop breathing many times in an hour, which can jar them out of restful sleep and wreak havoc with blood pressure, heart rate and internal stress responses.

In the United States, about one in six people may have sleep apnea, with one-fourth of those cases severe, Terry Young, an epidemiologist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, estimates.

Sleep apnea has received widespread attention as a health problem in the past 15 years, but data generated by Young’s team suggest 85 percent of sleep apnea cases still go undetected.

While studies have suggested it carries risks, no study had, until now, tracked a population of healthy, middle-aged individuals for more than a decade to measure apnea’s effects.

The new findings come from a Wisconsin sleep project in which Young and her colleagues monitored the long-term health of 1,522 state employees, some starting in 1988. While some of the volunteers were overweight, all were otherwise healthy upon entry to the study. Their average age at that time was about 50.

At the outset, the scientists assessed each person’s sleep in a laboratory and found that, while most of the volunteers slept normally, 365 had sleep apnea. Of these, 63 people had severe apnea in which they experienced 30 or more breathing stoppages per hour.

Researchers have monitored the study participants for 14 years on average, tracking some for nearly 19 years. Death certificates over that time show that the people with severe sleep apnea were more likely to die than people without the condition, the researchers report.

“This study establishes clearly that sleep apnea is not benign,” Young says. People with milder apnea didn’t die in statistically greater numbers than those without the condition, but mild cases often progress to worse apnea, she says.

Upon entering the study, the people who didn’t have sleep apnea were borderline overweight on average, whereas those with severe sleep apnea had an average weight that is considered obese. Indeed, sleep apnea can result from obesity.

“Fat accumulation in the airway makes the airway walls thicker, softer and more likely to collapse,” says Michael Twery, director of the National Center on Sleep Disorders Research at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute in Bethesda, Md.

But sleep apnea can also result from large tonsils, tightened throat muscles, a history of smoking or just a smaller-than-normal air passage. Even with adjustments for differences among the study participants in body weight, age and gender, those with severe apnea were still three times more likely to die, says Young.

The most common treatment for sleep apnea requires a person to wear a small mask during sleep. The device delivers gently forced air to the nose or mouth, keeping the airway open.

In this study, two-thirds of the people diagnosed at the outset with apnea chose not to use the devices during the time of the study. People with severe apnea who went untreated were four times as likely to die as those without the disorder, suggesting that using the masks increases survival, Young says.

Some people find the mask uncomfortable or the air-pumping machine too loud. Others pull their mask off unwittingly at night or complain of dried nasal passages.

“It’s encumbering and unnatural,” says Twery. “And it’s not attractive in bed.” But the machines work, he says.

Sleep apnea is rarely fatal on its own. In this study, deaths were mainly attributable to heart problems, stroke or cancer. When deprived of oxygen, the body responds as if confronted with an emergency, Twery says. This response pulls a person out of a deep, restful sleep to a point of semi-arousal — enough to start breathing again but not wake up. The process sabotages deep sleep. The release of stress hormones jumps and the continuing exposure to stress can have larger effects, such as chronic inflammation, he says.

“This may exacerbate existing problems indeed,” Young says.

Sleep apnea also increases daytime sleepiness and, although it didn’t show up in this mortality study, has been linked to accidents.

Found in: Body & Brain and Humans

Confirming ICE on Mars !

2008-08-01T02:41:00.000-07:00

July 31st, 2008

Soil baked in lander's oven offers direct evidence for ice in Martian soil.

The Mars Phoenix Lander has officially detected water ice, mission scientists reported today.

The Phoenix team was surprised to detect the water ice in the latest sample delivered to the Thermal and Evolved-Gas Analyzer instrument, or TEGA instrument, said William Boynton, a TEGA co-investigator from the University of Arizona, during a press briefing.

Delivering an ice-rich sample to one of TEGA’s eight ovens proved to be a challenge for the scientists for the past month. When the latest two attempts failed, the team instead decided to dig and dump a sample of soil taken from just above the ice layer.

The analysis of this sample, however, showed that “this was icy soil,” Boynton said. The results show that when the oven heated the soil, some of the sample melted at 0^oCelsius — the melting point of ice.

Past observations made with satellites orbiting Mars gave scientists their first clue that water ice might exist in the polar regions of Mars. But the results from the TEGA test are the first to provide direct confirmation of the existence of water ice.

Found in: Atom & Cosmos and Planetary Science