Bill Gates unleashes Bugs, No kidding.

True to his nature, Microsoft founder unleashed an untold number of Bugs on the giants of technology during his talk at the TED conference.

This time he could confidently assure conference attendees that the bugs carried no virus.
Yes Malaria, these bugs were a swarm of mosquitoes.

That's about all I want to contribute to besmirching Mr Gates in regards to raising awareness of the problems of Malaria.



But feel free to add your own captions to the picture in my head of Bill releasing bugs.

Here are the first few that came immediately to mind.

"I know, Bugs, Bill Gates, who'd a thunk it?"

"Relax, they're features."

"We'll take care of these with the next service pack"

-MrCopilot

QOTD, Scientist RE: Doomsday, There (may) be Dragons

Perhaps you have heard of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) operated by European Center for Nuclear Research or NAMBLA, err I mean CERN.

For those of you who haven't. Its a monstrous 8 Billion dollar machine outside Geneva, constructed for the purpose of smashing tiny particles into each other at unbelievable levels of energy and speed to recreate conditions a trillionth of a second after the Big Bang.

Why, well to do science requires observation. We cannot exactly observe that instant back in time, so why not recreate it.

The problem is, a couple of people think its a really, really bad idea. The kind of idea that could end life as we know it on earth, either through the production of stranglets or a micro black hole that could swallow us all. Walter L. Wagner and Luis Sancho feel so strongly that they are suing CERN in Hawaii asking for "a temporary restraining order prohibiting CERN from proceeding with the accelerator until it has produced a safety report and an environmental assessment."

Why Hawaii has any jurisdiction over an international science organization in Switzerland, is anybody's guess.

All of this is reported in today's NYTimes and covered by Slashdot and various Tech rags. And leads us directly to The QUOTE OF THE DAY:

Dr. Arkani-Hamed said concerning worries about the death of the Earth or universe, “Neither has any merit.” He pointed out that because of the dice-throwing nature of quantum physics, there was some probability of almost anything happening. There is some minuscule probability, he said, “the Large Hadron Collider might make dragons that might eat us up.”

When are they planning on firing this thing up? I want to be ready, my suit of armor is still out being repaired.

Strip courtesy of http://www.xkcd.com

CERN has a page dedicated to these concerns. They get second place for Quote of the Day with this.

Microscopic black holes will not eat you...

MrCopilot

Energy Biofuel and Carbon Emmisions

Two new studies are making their way across the web this week examining the environmental impact of the manufacturing biofuels.

Sites are interviewing one of the authors, Joseph Fargione of The Nature Conservancy, to get an authoritative viewpoint. At first glance his arguments appear valid.

"Carbon is the main building block of life, so plants are 50 percent carbon by dry weight," Fargione said. "So when you're looking at a rainforest, there's tons and tons of carbon stored in the plant biomass and in the soils."

When land is cleared either by cutting trees down or by burning, much of that stored carbon is released into the atmosphere.

"Fire releases the carbon directly, as carbon dioxide, and decomposition, when plants decay, that also releases the carbon as carbon dioxide," Fargione explained. "And this carbon dioxide goes into the air as an important greenhouse gas and contributes to global warming."

Large amounts of carbon in these ecosystems are released each year through deforestation and other land conversion.

"Over the last 150 years, 25 percent of our carbon emissions have come from land clearing," Fargione said.

Biofuels from crops such as corn, sugarcane, soybeans and palms require land to grow on. Most of this land must either directly or indirectly come from the destruction of natural ecosystems, because "right now we're asking the world's farmers to feed 6 billion people, and they're doing it on some fixed amount of land," Fargione said. "And if we're also going to produce energy, that requires new land, and that new land has to come from somewhere."

Clearing natural ecosystems, either for farming food crops or growing biofuel crops, creates what Fargione calls a "carbon debt." The initial clearing of the land releases an amount of carbon dioxide that could take decades or centuries to make up for by using biofuels.

LiveScience.com BioFuels Can Be Bad

Can be bad, OK, he has a point, if you clear cut a rainforest, and BURN it, of course you will get a Carbon Debt in the process. Is anyone actually considering this insane tactic? If you are stop it, please. Domestic production here in the US will be faced with no such problem.

Other arguments by Fargione are also overblown. Consider this quote from The New Scientist.

The idea makes intuitive environmental sense – plants take up carbon dioxide as they grow, so biofuels should help reduce greenhouse gas emissions – but the full environmental cost of biofuels is only now becoming clear.

Extra emissions are created from the production of fertiliser needed to grow corn, for example, leading some researchers to predict that the energy released by burning ethanol is only 25% greater than that used to grow and process the fuel.

...When the carbon released by those clearances is taken into account, corn ethanol produces nearly twice as much carbon as petrol.

The New Scientist: Biofuels emissions may be 'worse than petrol'

I can agree with this one. Anyone that argues we should be using Food crops for fuel production is hurting the cause. One only need look at the effects that ethanol has had on corn pricing as of late, for a practical reason why it is a bad idea. Corn and other food products require vast amounts of fertilizer and farm equipment causing an increasing amount of carbon emissions, there is a an environmental reason. However, there are crops that do neither.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) believes that biofuels—made from crops of native grasses, such as fast- growing switchgrass—could reduce the nation's dependence on foreign oil, curb emissions of the "greenhouse gas" carbon dioxide, and strengthen America's farm economy.

bioenergy.ornl.gov:Biofuels from Switchgrass: Greener Energy Pastures

Switchgrass is a renewable crop, requires planting every 10 years, and uses heavy equipment only during harvest. It also does quite well with little to no fertilizer. These facts are ignored by the study. Instead focusing on worst case scenarios and painting the entire BioFuel industry in a negative light.

Let me be clear about this. Biofuels are not a longterm solution. They are a stopgap measure intended to reduce Co2 emmisions and reduce the dependence on foreign oil.

Getting rid of the combustion engine will take time and courage. Two things that scientist and political watchdogs will tell you we sorely are lacking.

We cannot wait for it, We must act now to reduce emissions and consumption of finite resources we have no control over. Lest we continue down this slippery slope that leaves our children and grandchildren in a very dirty and very violent world.


MrCopilot

Update: I have sent off an email to Mr Fargoine, hoping to get clarification.
He did reply with copies of the two reports. And this response.

The problem with diverting cropland to fuel production is that people have to eat, and so land is converted to food production elsewhere. This is occurring as US farmers switch from soy to corn, increasing soy prices which spurs deforestation of Amazonian rainforest for soy production.

We simply cannot ask the world's farmers to produce food for 6 billion people, and also ask them to produce energy, without using additional land. That land has to come from somewhere. Unfortunately, much of it is coming from natural ecosystems.

What most people don't realize is how much carbon is stored in natural ecosystems. There is three times as much carbon locked up in plants and soils as there is the atmosphere. Land use change cause 20% of our carbon emissions. Any policy to fight climate change must take land use into account, or it won't work.

Unfortunately, the press ignores the biomass ethanol numbers and focuses on the worst case numbers. LArgely because the study emphasizes those points as well.

Here are the two pieces of information that are most important to me.

Barring biofuels produced directly on forest or grassland
would encourage biofuel processors to rely on existing
croplands, but farmers would replace crops by plowing up
new lands. An effective system would have to guarantee that
biofuels use a feedstock, such as a waste product or carbon-
poor lands that will not trigger significant emissions from
land use change.

www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/1151861/DC1

SOM Text
Tables S1 to S3
Appendix A to F
References
17 October 2007; accepted 28 January 2008
Published online 7 February 2008; 10.1126/science.1151861

Take a look at this chart and pay special attention to the far right.

www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/1152747/DC1
Materials and Methods
Tables S1 and S2
References
8 November 2007; accepted 24 January 2008
Published online 7 February 2008; 10.1126/science.1152747

This is exactly what I am talking about. This study should be used to promote prairie biomass ethanol instead of condemning it along with corn ethanol.

Special thanks to Joe for providing the data that helps clear this up. Although I think he should emphasize these points a little better to the media. Even with pointed questions, I had to dig into the reports instead of getting a straight answer.


MrCopilot

Evolution Just a Theory?

In a recent discussion on life the universe and everything, the topic of evolution and Darwin came up as it always does. When the conversation stopped me in my tracks with this statement that I'm sure we all have heard.

"Well, evolution is just a theory."

This is the problem with the English language, there just aren't enough words. Sometimes we have to share them with other "common" meanings.

This statement coming from an intelligent person whom I respect and care for affected me more than I had expected. Upon further consideration, I decided this is not just one person's misconception, it must be widespread even in people under no religious pressure whatsoever. I set about to enlighten as many people as possible to the problem with the following article.

Terms used in an intelligent debate require mutual understanding for the conversation to have any value to both parties. In any discussion on evolution a certain phrase comes up in which there appears not to be mutual understanding. That phrase is "Evolution is only a theory." or "Evolution is just one theory." Intelligent Design proponents toot this horn as often as they can. In some cases deliberately misunderstanding the meaning of the word theory to bolster their argument to an undereducated public. Webster's online dictionary has no less than six definitions for the word theory.

Read More @ Yahoo Voices

I hope I have helped in some small way with this contribution. Now we all have a nice place to link to whenever this comes up again.


MrCopilot