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The hidden costs of identity theft

Debra Guenterberg doesn't have to go to a horror movie to get spooked. She says she's been living a nightmare for the past 13 years.

The Wisconsin woman says she's been stalked by two phantoms. Two men stole her name and her husband's Social Security number. They used the information to obtain credit cards, buy cars and three homes.

Like many horror movie villains, the bad guys keep coming back. Thirteen years after the men stole their names, the Guenterbergs are still being turned down for credit because of the damage done by the men, she says.

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Nationwide balloon-hunt contest tests online networking

On Saturday, thousands of people nationwide will search the skies in a high-tech scavenger hunt designed to test how far-flung groups can use the Internet and technology to work together.

The DARPA Network Challenge calls on groups to pinpoint the locations of 10 red weather balloons scattered around the country -- with a $40,000 prize going to the first team to find them all. DARPA, which stands for Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, is the U.S. military's research arm.

This year's contest is designed to test the the way social networking, crowdsourcing or lesser-known Web-based techniques can help accomplish a large-scale, time-critical task.

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An e-reader shortage for the holidays?

It seemed like this was going to be the holiday shopping season of the e-reader.

But that was before Barnes & Noble told customers it had run short on pre-orders of its new electronic book reader, the Nook. That device was poised to be a big holiday competitor to the more-established Amazon Kindle.

Barnes & Noble says customers who pre-order the Nook now won't get the device until the week of January 4 - after the holiday shopping season. A limited number of the devices will be available for sale in some of the "highest volume" Barnes & Noble stores.

In an e-mail, spokeswoman Mary Ellen Keating said early sales of the Nook beat the bookseller's expectations.

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Future Technology Helps Human

Jet-powered Ford guns for 300 mph

Joe Wilkins knew there was only one way to give his supercharged, alcohol-injected Hemi-engined hot rod more power: Put a jet engine in the trunk.

"It started as a hobby and turned into a monster," said Joe Wilkins, the motor madman behind what might be the wildest 1939 Ford ever built. He's an inventor and defense department contractor, and the idea of goosing the Ford's ability to turn heads and shred tires came when he bought a used gas turbine engine.

"I got hooked on the simplicity and power that this thing produced, and I decided one day I want to put it in a car."

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Is your date a 'stud or dud?' Ask your phone

If that dreamy blind date seems too good to be true, or the guy at the bar with a martini and a pencil-thin moustache looks a little sketchy, the truth about them -- or at least some of it -- could be found on your phone.

Designers at a pair of companies say their new applications for smartphones can tell you in real time whether someone is married or divorced, has a criminal record, has filed for bankruptcy or has any number of potential red flags in their past.

Using Google to search for information on a prospective romantic partner is standard practice for many single people in the digital age. But these new apps, combined with the growth of smartphones and wireless networks, now allow for quick background checks on the go, potentially before a date is even over.

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Hot video games for holiday shopping

Like a well-placed power-up, the right gift can light up the eyes of that video gamer in your life.

But for non-gamers, navigating the many offerings at your local store can be confusing. So with that in mind, here are suggestions, grouped by category, on some of the most buzzed-about games for holiday giving.

Make sure you know which gaming console (PlayStation, Xbox, Wii) your gamer has before you shop. Prices for these games will range from $30 to $60, depending on the store and any promotions or sales. Check online or at your local store for the latest pricing.

These are only a few of the games in demand this holiday season. If you have other recommendations, feel free to let us know in the comments area at the bottom of this story.

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Fossil fuel chemicals avoided in plastics by Koreans

A team of South Korean scientists have produced the polymers used for everyday plastics through bioengineering, rather than through the use of fossil fuel-based chemicals.

It is believed that the technique may now allow for the production of environmentally-friendly plastic that is biodegradable and low in toxicity.

The research focused on Polylactic Acid (PLA), a bio-based polymer which holds the key to producing plastics through natural and renewable resources. Polymers are molecules found in everyday life in the form of plastics and rubbers.

"The polyesters and other polymers we use everyday are mostly derived from fossil oils made through the refinery or chemical process," Professor Sang Yup Lee, who lead the research, said in a press statement.

"The idea of producing polymers from renewable biomass has attracted much attention due to the increasing concerns of environmental problems and the limited nature of fossil resources. PLA is considered a good alternative to petroleum-based plastics, as it is both biodegradable and has a low toxicity to humans."

Until now PLA has been produced in a two-step fermentation and chemical process of polymerization, which is both complex and expensive. The team used a metabolically engineered strain of E. coli and developed a one-stage process.

"By developing a strategy which combines metabolic engineering and enzyme engineering, we've developed an efficient bio-based one-step production process for PLA and its copolymers," said Lee.

"This means that a developed E. coli strain is now capable of efficiently producing unnatural polymers, through a one-step fermentation process.

"Global warming and other environmental problems are urging us to develop sustainable processes based on renewable resources.

"This new strategy should be generally useful for developing other engineered organisms capable of producing various unnatural polymers by direct fermentation from renewable resources."

The research team from KAIST University in Seoul and the Korean chemical company LG Chem published their findings in the journal "Biotechnology and Bioengineering".

Source : CNN

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Solar Photovoltaic Technology

Solar cells, also called photovoltaic (PV) cells by scientists, convert sunlight directly into electricity. PV gets its name from the process of converting light (photons) to electricity (voltage), which is called the PV effect. The PV effect was discovered in 1954, when scientists at Bell Telephone discovered that silicon (an element found in sand) created an electric charge when exposed to sunlight. Soon solar cells were being used to power space satellites and smaller items like calculators and watches. Today, thousands of people power their homes and businesses with individual solar PV systems. Utility companies are also using PV technology for large power stations.

Solar panels used to power homes and businesses are typically made from solar cells combined into modules that hold about 40 cells. A typical home will use about 10 to 20 solar panels to power the home. The panels are mounted at a fixed angle facing south, or they can be mounted on a tracking device that follows the sun, allowing them to capture the most sunlight. Many solar panels combined together to create one system is called a solar array. For large electric utility or industrial applications, hundreds of solar arrays are interconnected to form a large utility-scale PV system.

Traditional solar cells are made from silicon, are usually flat-plate, and generally are the most efficient. Second-generation solar cells are called thin-film solar cells because they are made from amorphous silicon or nonsilicon materials such as cadmium telluride. Thin film solar cells use layers of semiconductor materials only a few micrometers thick. Because of their flexibility, thin film solar cells can double as rooftop shingles and tiles, building facades, or the glazing for skylights.

Third-generation solar cells are being made from variety of new materials besides silicon, including solar inks using conventional printing press technologies, solar dyes, and conductive plastics. Some new solar cells use plastic lenses or mirrors to concentrate sunlight onto a very small piece of high efficiency PV material. The PV material is more expensive, but because so little is needed, these systems are becoming cost effective for use by utilities and industry. However, because the lenses must be pointed at the sun, the use of concentrating collectors is limited to the sunniest parts of the country.

New Technology Prolongs Produce Freshness

Nutritionists encourage eating a healthy diet rich in fresh fruits and vegetables. In response, consumers flock to their grocery stores and stock up these healthful foods. Too often, though, produce spoils soon after purchase. This is becoming more common as more produce is imported from around the world.

The cause of the untimely spoilage is ethylene, a plant hormone that fruits and vegetables produce naturally as they ripen. Even at temperatures colder than 39° Fahrenheit, apples and avocados produce high quantities of ethylene. The situation is complicated when fruits and vegetables are packaged for long trips—as the air in the confined container circulates, the concentration of ethylene gas, even as low as .01 parts per million, accelerates the ripening of stored produce.

Postharvest losses due to spoilage, estimated at 30 to 40 percent worldwide, affect the economic success of growers, packers, storage houses, and distributors of produce.

With funding from USDA’s Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service (CSREES), Dr. Reza Shekarriz and W. L. Allen of Fluid Analytics, Inc., in Lake Oswego, Ore., have developed a compact sensor to accurately measure low concentrations of ethylene on transport containers.

“This issue is becoming more critical as global trade and year-round consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables increases,” Shekarriz said. “Ethylene-related problems make up a significant portion of postharvest losses in developing countries, resulting in negative economic impacts worth billions of dollars every year.”

Produce freshness can be controlled by carefully monitoring and regulating exposure to ethylene during transport. Reducing produce exposure to ethylene slows the natural ripening process, thereby extending produce shelf life.

The new sensor continuously samples air at a regulated flow rate, normally 12 to 30 cubic inches of air per minute. Not only can the sensor detect ethylene at concentrations low enough to ripen produce, it also reports ethylene concentration in real-time to provide greater control over ethylene levels during transport.

“This sensor is far more sensitive to ethylene detection than previous technology. Future developments may increase sensitivity to provide better response times and will be integrated with ethylene scrubbers to actively remove ethylene from cold storage rooms and shipping containers” said Shekarriz.

This device is particularly important for organic produce that does not use other chemicals to control the ripening process.

The beneficiaries of this new sensing technology include horticulture and floriculture research institutions, growers, packing houses, cold-storage facilities, greenhouses, shipping containers, and consumers.

Scientists in the United States, Germany, England, France, and the Netherlands are already using prototypes of the ethylene sensor. Future work by this research team will focus on developing new technology to remove ethylene from an enclosed space to further reduce the complications of postharvest ripening.

This technology has been licensed to a French company, ABSOGER, for commercialization into the European cold storage market. The commercial units are expected to reach the market in mid-2009.

Thermally Modified Wood

Thermally modified wood is produced by subjecting solid wood to high temperatures to improve their dimensional stability and biological durability. Solid wood is exposed t 160-240 ^oC in an atmosphere of low oxygen content or oil is used to transfer heat to the wood.

The wood’s properties can be altered by modifying its cell wall components using heat. Portions of hemicelluloses are hydrolyzed into to their monosaccharide components such as glucose, galactose, mannose, arabinose and xylose The amorphous regions of cellulose are also hydrolyzed, breaking cellulose into shorter chains. The degradation of the cell wall’s two major components leads to reduced free hydroxyl groups in the chemical structures and increased cross-linking of lignin.

The modifications result in several changes in the wood’s properties. The following are basic properties of thermally modified wood, regardless of the kind of thermal modification ™ process used: (1) decreased heat conductivity by 10 – 30%; (2) decreased mechanical strength by up to 30%; (3) reduced weight by 5 – 15%; (4) decreased shrinking and swelling by 50-90% due to reduced equilibrium moisture content of the wood; (5) improved biological durability; (6) extractives migration to the wood surface, and (7) color change from whit or yellow to dark brown.

Commercial production of thermally modified wood started in the late 1990’s in Europe. ThermoWood. PlatoWood, Retification and Perdure, and Oil-heated wood of Finland, Netherland, France and Germany, respectively, are some of the popular TM processes.

Green, air-dried and kiln dried wood can be thermally modified depending on the TM process used. For example, in the Finnish Thermowood process, green wood is first dried above 100 0c. Thermal modification follows after the desired moisture content of 10% is reached. The treatment temperature and duration will vary depending on the wood’s end-uses.

In 1974, FPRDI started conducting studies on thermal modification. Mailum and Arenas subjected five local wood species to different temperatures ( 130, 150 and 175 ⁰C). Results showed improvement in the natural durability of acacia [Samanea saman (Jacq.) Merr.], guijo [Shorea guiso (Blanco) Blume], mayapis [Shorea palosapis (Blanco) Merr.] and palosapis {Anisoptera thurifera (Blanco) Blume spp. Thurifera] against two decay fungi species, i. e. Fomes liviudus, a white-rot fungus and Lenzies striata, a brown-rot fungus.

However, no similar studies followed thereafter until a 2009 research on plantation species, malapapaya [Polyscias nodosa (Blume) Seem.]. Malapapaya was thermally modified to improve its physico-mechanical properties and decay resistance using different combinations of temperature and treatment durations. Results showed significant improvement on the biological durability and dimensional stability, as well as color change in malapapaya wood.

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New and Emerging Environmental Technology (NEET)

The NEET website is an on-line repository for information about technologies that prevent, remove, destroy, sample, monitor, or model air pollutant emissions from stationary, mobile, and indoor sources. NEET contains information about technologies for improving air quality that are commercially available, as well as technologies that are currently being developed. You use NEET's search features or the technology provider directory to find technologies listed in NEET that meet your needs.

All owners, manufacturers, developers, and research sponsors of air technologies are invited to list their technologies in the NEET database. Adding your technology is an easy on-line procedure that you perform with your own password-protected account. Your technology can be a commercially available technology or an emerging technology in research and development. Listing technologies is free.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Air Quality Planning and Standards selected RTI International as its cooperative agreement partner for developing and operating a web-accessed database to serve as an information resource for new and emerging air technologies.