Communism outperforms Capitalism

U.S. Sets Tariffs On Chinese Solar Panels:

 

The U.S. Commerce Department has imposed new import fees on solar panels made in China, finding that the Chinese government is improperly giving subsidies to manufacturers of the panels there.  The department said Tuesday it has found on a preliminary basis that Chinese solar panel makers have received government subsidies of 2.9 percent to 4.73 percent. Therefore the department said tariffs in the same proportions will be charged on Chinese panels imported into the U.S., depending on which company makes them.  The tariff amounts are considered small, but the decision could ratchet up trade tensions between the U.S. and China. Several U.S. solar panel makers had asked the government to impose steep tariffs on Chinese imports. They are struggling against stiff competition from China as well as weakening demand in Europe and other key markets, just as President Barack Obama is working to promote renewable energy.  "Today's announcement affirms what U.S. manufacturers have long known: Chinese manufacturers have received unfair ... subsidies," Steve Ostrenga, CEO of Helios Solar Works in Milwaukee, Wis., said in a statement. The company is a member of a group called the Coalition for American Solar Manufacturing.  On the other side, some U.S. companies argue that low-priced Chinese imports have helped consumers and promote rapid growth of the industry.  The new tariffs are low, making the Commerce Department decision "a relatively positive outcome for the U.S. solar industry and its 100,000 employees," said Jigar Shah, president of the Coalition for Affordable Solar Energy. "However, tariffs large or small will hurt American jobs and prolong our world's reliance on fossil fuels. Fortunately, this decision will not significantly raise solar prices in the United States."  Members of CASE include California-based SunEdison, Recurrent Energy, SolarCity and Westinghouse Solar, as well as China-based Suntech Power Holdings Co.  Commerce said it was putting off until May 17 a decision on whether Chinese companies are dumping the solar panels on world markets, selling them below cost.  Trade tensions with China are especially sensitive at a time when the U.S. and other Western economies want to boost technology exports to revive economic growth and reduce high unemployment.  The U.S. and China are two of the world's biggest markets for solar, wind and other renewable energy technology. Both governments are promoting their own suppliers in hopes of generating higher-paid technology jobs.  The U.S. manufacturers' complaints have been amplified by the controversy surrounding Solyndra Inc. a California-based solar panel maker that filed for bankruptcy protection after winning a $500 million federal loan from the Obama administration.  Solyndra's failure embarrassed the administration and prompted a lengthy review by congressional Republicans who are critical of Obama's green energy policies. Solyndra has cited Chinese competition as a key reason for its failure.  U.S. energy officials say China spent more than $30 billion last year to subsidize its solar industry. Obama said in November that China has "questionable competitive practices" in clean energy and that his administration has fought "these kinds of dumping activities." The administration will act to enforce trade laws where appropriate, Obama said.  SolarWorld Industries America Inc., the largest U.S. maker of silicon solar cells and panels and a subsidiary of Germany-based SolarWorld, has led the U.S. manufacturers' complaints.  China announced its own probe in November, saying it will investigate whether U.S. support for renewable energy companies improperly hurts foreign suppliers.

Cultural stereotypes rooted in Genetic's

Why the British are freethinking and the Chinese love conformity: It's all in the genes claim scientists:

Cultural stereotypes may be deeply rooted in our genetic makeup, say scientists.  Common traits like British individualism and Chinese conformity could be attributed to genetic differences between races according to a new study.  The study, by the department of psychology at Northwestern University in Illinois, suggests that the individualism seen in western nations, and the higher levels of collectivism and family loyalty found in Asian cultures, are caused by differences in the prevalence of particular genes. Common traits like British individualism and Chinese conformity could be attributed to genetic differences between races according to new research.  'We demonstrate for the first time a robust association between cultural values of individualism–collectivism and the serotonin transporter gene,' said Joan Chiao, from the department of psychology at Northwestern University.  Chiao and her colleagues combined data from global genetic surveys, looking at variations in the prevalence of various genes. The findings were matched with other research which ranked nations by levels of individualism and collectivism.  The team focused their attentions on the gene that controls levels of serotonin, a chemical in the brain which regulates mood and emotions.

Japanese men praying.  Their studies found that one version of the gene was far more common in western populations which, they said, was associated with individualistic and freethinking behavior.  Another version of the same gene, which was prevalent in Asian populations, they said was associated with collectivism and a greater willingness to put the common good first.  People with this gene appeared to have a different response to serotonin.

 A protestor at the Occupy site in front of St Paul's in London.  If they are confirmed, the findings made by Chiao and her colleagues would suggest that races may have a number of inherent psychological differences — just as they differ in physical appearances.  Chiao suggests that the version of the gene predominating in Asian populations is associated with heightened anxiety levels and increased risk of depression.  She adds that such populations respond by structuring their society to ward off those negative effects.  The success of such social structures would then ensure that the gene would spread.  She added the findings showed how culture could exert a powerful influence on human genetics and evolution.

10,000 Year old Mammoth

Russia Plans to Clone 10,000-Year-Old Woolly Mammoth:

Russian scientists and a South Korean colleague will attempt to clone a woolly mammoth from a specimen frozen in the Siberian tundra for 10,000 years, RIA Novosti reported.  The Institute of Applied Ecology in Siberia’s Yakutsk region plan to implant genetic material from the mammoth into an egg of a live female elephant, the state-run Russian news service said.  The elephant will carry the fetus for 22 months and “hopefully give birth to a live baby mammoth,” RIA cited an unidentified official from the institute as saying.

FDA loss of drug control

Drug data reveal sneaky side effects:

An algorithm designed by US scientists to trawl through a plethora of drug interactions has yielded thousands of previously unknown side effects caused by taking drugs in combination.  The work, published today in Science Translational Medicine1, provides a way to sort through the hundreds of thousands of 'adverse events' reported to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) each year. “It’s a step in the direction of a complete catalogue of drug–drug interactions,” says the study's lead author, Russ Altman, a bioengineer at Stanford University in California.  Pills in pill boxes.  A program predicts the potential side-effects of mixing different pills.  Although clinical trials are often designed to assess the safety of a drug in addition to how well it works, the size of the trials needed to detect the full range of drug interactions would surpass even the large, late-stage clinical trials sometimes required for drug approval. Furthermore, clinical trials are often done in controlled settings, using carefully defined criteria to determine which patients are eligible for enrollment — including other conditions they might have and which medicines they can take alongside the trial drug.  Once a drug hits the market, however, things can get messy as unknown side-effects pop up. And that’s where Altman’s algorithm comes in.  “Even if you show a drug is safe in a clinical trial, that doesn’t mean it’s going to be safe in the real world,” says Paul Watkins, director of the Hamner–University of North Carolina Institute for Drug Safety Sciences in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, who was not involved in the work. “This approach is addressing a better way to rapidly assess a drug’s safety in the real world once it is approved.”

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Altman and his colleagues have been studying drug–drug interactions as a way to understand how a person’s genes influence their response to pharmaceuticals. To do that, he says, you must first have a good picture of the molecular mechanisms that underlie drug responses.  “Adverse events are incredibly valuable clues to what these drugs are doing in the body,” Altman says. “They can tell you the other pathways in the cell that are being tickled by these drugs.”  But reports of adverse drug events are notoriously prone to bias. For example, cholesterol-lowering treatments are more often taken by older patients, and so conditions associated with ageing, such as heart attack, could be wrongly linked to a drug as a side effect.  Altman and his colleagues reduced this bias by adopting an approach sometimes used in observational clinical trials. They developed an algorithm that would match data from each drug-exposed patient to a nonexposed control patient with the same condition. The approach automatically corrected for several known sources of bias, including those linked to gender, age and disease1.  The team then used this method to compile a database of 1,332 drugs and possible side effects that were not listed on the labels of those drugs. The algorithm came up with an average of 329 previously unknown adverse events for each drug — far surpassing the average of 69 side effects listed on most drug labels.  The team also compiled a similar database looking at interactions between pairs of drugs, which yielded many more possible side effects than could be attributed to either drug alone. When the data were broken down by drug class, the most striking effect was seen when diuretics called thiazides, often prescribed to treat high blood pressure and edema, were used in combination with a class of drugs called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, used to treat depression. Compared with people who used either drug alone, patients who used both drugs were significantly more likely to experience a heart condition known as prolonged QT, which is associated with an increased risk of irregular heartbeats and sudden death.  A search of electronic medical records from Stanford University Hospital confirmed the relationship between these two drug classes, revealing at roughly 1.5-fold increase in the likelihood of prolonged QT when the drugs were combined, compared to when either drug was taken alone. Altman says that the next step will be to test this finding further, possibly by conducting a clinical trial in which patients are given both drugs and then monitored for prolonged QT.  What should the drug regulators do with the thousands of possible side effects Altman and his team uncovered? That is a complex problem, says Watkins, who adds that regulators will have to factor in the availability of alternative treatments and the magnitude and seriousness of the side effect, among other considerations.  Altman, who serves as an adviser on the FDA’s Science Board, says that he plans to present his results to the agency. He suggests that the algorithm could be used with the FDA’s existing drug-surveillance programs to remove bias. However, he points out the enormity of the task: “We’ve just released a database with 10,000 or more adverse events,” he says. “I do not expect the FDA to uncritically take these results and add them to every drug label.”

3-D Nano printer World Record

3-D Printer With Nano-Precision:

Printing three-dimensional objects with incredibly fine details is now possible using "two-photon lithography." With this technology, tiny structures on a nanometer scale can be fabricated. Researchers at the Vienna University of Technology (TU Vienna) have now made a major breakthrough in speeding up this printing technique: The high-precision-3D-printer at TU Vienna is orders of magnitude faster than similar devices. This opens up completely new areas of application, such as in medicine.  Setting a New World Record.  The 3D printer uses a liquid resin, which is hardened at precisely the correct spots by a focused laser beam. The focal point of the laser beam is guided through the resin by movable mirrors and leaves behind a hardened line of solid polymer, just a few hundred nanometers wide. This fine resolution enables the creation of intricately structured sculptures as tiny as a grain of sand. "Until now, this technique used to be quite slow," says Professor Jürgen Stampfl from the Institute of Materials Science and Technology at the TU Vienna. "The printing speed used to be measured in millimeters per second -- our device can do five meters in one second." In two-photon lithography, this is a world record.  This amazing progress was made possible by combining several new ideas. "It was crucial to improve the steering mechanism of the mirrors," says Jan Torgersen (TU Vienna). The mirrors are continuously in motion during the printing process. The acceleration and deceleration-periods have to be tuned very precisely to achieve high-resolution results at a record-breaking speed.  Photoactive Molecules Harden the Resin.  3D-printing is not all about mechanics -- chemists had a crucial role to play in this project too. "The resin contains molecules, which are activated by the laser light. They induce a chain reaction in other components of the resin, so-called monomers, and turn them into a solid," says Jan Torgersen. These initiator molecules are only activated if they absorb two photons of the laser beam at once -- and this only happens in the very center of the laser beam, where the intensity is highest. In contrast to conventional 3D-printing techniques, solid material can be created anywhere within the liquid resin rather than on top of the previously created layer only. Therefore, the working surface does not have to be specially prepared before the next layer can be produced, which saves a lot of time. A team of chemists led by Professor Robert Liska (TU Vienna) developed the suitable ingredients for this special resin.  Researchers all over the world are working on 3D printers today -- at universities as well as in industry. Because of the dramatically increased speed, much larger objects can now be created in a given period of time. This makes two-photon-lithography an interesting technique for industry.  At the TU Vienna, scientists are now developing bio-compatible resins for medical applications. They can be used to create scaffolds to which living cells can attach themselves facilitating the systematic creation of biological tissues. The 3d printer could also be used to create tailor made construction parts for biomedical technology or nanotechnology.

0.3mm Organic Battery

NEC develops 0.3mm thick organic battery:

[caption id="attachment_2337" align="aligncenter" width="1024" caption="Organic Battery"]

Organic batteries are an exciting area of research at the moment due to the benefits and potential they have to power our gadgets in the future. One of the companies at the forefront of organic battery development is NEC, which has been working on these polymer-based batteries since 2001 and had its first major release in 2005.  Organic batteries are desirable because they have a very high energy density considering their size, use no heavy metals, and are incredibly thin. That last feature is highlighted by NEC’s latest breakthrough, which has seen the creation of a 0.3mm thick organic radical battery.  Such a thin battery can be placed inside objects that are already very limited in thickness, for example, a sheet of e-paper, and of course a smart card or credit card. Until now the thickness was limited to 0.7mm, but NEC managed to cut that by over 50% all thanks to printed components.  The prototype battery was created by printing an integrated circuit and battery directly on to a polymer film. Such components allowed for a complete system to be built including a display, antenna, and encryption system. All of which sounds like the perfect solution for next-generation smart cards.  As for the power on offer from this super-thin battery, output is rated as 5kW/L with a capacity of 3mAh. In real terms that means the integrated display can be refreshed 2,000x, or the antenna can be used to transmit data 35x before a recharge is required. The recharge only takes around 30 seconds to top up the battery fully, and the capacity is only reduced by 25% after 500 charges.