Botella que se llena de agua sola

ORIGINAL: BioGuia

Foto: NBD Nano

La ausencia de agua potable en algunas regiones del planeta es crítica. Alrededor del mundo, miles de personas deben recorrer kilómetros enteros para llenar un cubo. Sin embargo, la naturaleza se ha adaptado bien en las regiones desérticas. Uno de los mejores ejemplos es el escarabajo de Namib, que obtiene agua del aire gracias a la condensación. Inspirada en este escarabajo, la empresa NBD Nano, una startup fundada por especialistas en química orgánica, biología e ingeniería mecánica, ha anunciado el desarrollo de una botella, que en términos sencillos, se llena de agua sola. 

Escarabajo de Namibia

El escarabajo del desierto de Namib obtiene agua todos los días gracias a que puede “capturarla” a través de la condensación, a pesar de que el desierto de Namib tiene 1,4 centímetros de lluvia por año. Si un escarabajo puede hacerlo, Deckard Sorensen, cofundador de NBD Nano, llegó a la conclusión de que es posible replicar el proceso, y aplicarlo en una botella.

Básicamente, la superficie de la botella está cubierta con capas hidrófilas e hidrófobas, y utiliza un pequeño ventilador para hacer circular el aire. El proceso eventualmente lleva a la condensación, provocando que la botella se llene de agua sola. Como es fácil imaginar, esto requiere de una fuente de energía externa, pero el consumo no sería tan alto, ya que con una celda solar y una batería recargable sería suficiente. El potencial para esta tecnología es interesante, porque de acuerdo a las palabras de Sorenson, hay cerca de 11.340 billones de litros de agua en el aire. 

SAM-LBL(Self-Assembly-Monolayers Layer by Layer): Monocapas Autoensamblables Capa a Capa.  Subcampo de la Nanotecnología fundamento para los reecubrimientos hechos por NBD. Imagen: NBD Nano

Si el escarabajo puede hacerlo, quizás sea posible obtener el mismo beneficio en una botella, pero la empresa advierte de que se trata de un proyecto que todavía necesita varios años de desarrollo. No se ha mencionado cuánto tiempo en promedio podría demorar una botella en llenarse, aunque eso probablemente dependa de la cantidad de humedad en el aire, y por supuesto, del tamaño de la botella. Las aplicaciones teóricas se extienden a casi cualquier cosa que necesite agua, por lo que esperamos a ver más sobre este desarrollo. 

Sorenson ha utilizado la nanotecnología para imitar la forma en que este escarabajo obtiene el agua, y es que la botella que ha creado se encuentra compuesta por varias capas hechas de componentes hidrófilos e hidrófobos, que ayudan a absorber la humedad y el agua del aire y además también a lograr el efecto de condensación, y que funciona mediante baterías o paneles solares. 

Deckard menciona que su invento podría ayudar a obtener agua en aquellas regiones que carecen de la misma o en las que es difícil obtenerla, ya que el mantenimiento y funcionamiento es de bajo costo, además ha declarado que actualmente está pensando en ampliar la idea y poder aplicar este invento a fincas e invernaderos. 

fuentes: 

http://www.abc.es
http://www.nbdnano.com/

The Seals Of Nam - End the seal hunt in Namibia!

ORIGINAL: Avaaz

Wonderful Francois Hugo, who all by himself tries to save a species, the seals of Namibia..

60,000

61,696

61,696 people have signed. Help get to 60,000

Why this is important
On July 1st 2012, a quota of 85 000 Cape Fur seal pups are set to be beaten to death in Namibia. The pups are separated from their mothers. They are herded away from the safety of the sea where they are then beaten to death with pick handles. They are stabbed in the throat, often while still alive.

We can beat this cruelty!

A further quota of 6 000 adult bull seals will be set. These are to be shot at point blank range so that their genitals can be exported to the East where they are used to make ineffective sex potions for the Asian Market.

You can help put an end to this!

Aside from the cruelty aspect, an independent report shows that seal viewing based ecotourism in Namibia will yield three hundred times more revenue than the massacre and will create a wealth of job opportunities in a country desperate for employment.

This is not just about animals, but people too!!

Cape Fur Seals are a threatened species. They have suffered massive habitat loss, several mass die offs and they are listed on Appendix II of the United Nations Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species. (CITES)

With Namibia facing mounting public outcry and increasing consumer boycotts, we the undersigned are urging the Hon. Minister Bernard Esau to immediately end the annual bloodbath, protect the seals with effective new legislation and to allow all Namibians to benefit from this magnificent tourist drawcard.

Please sign and share this petitions. Time is running out and thousands of baby seals are going to beaten to death!

For more info refer to The Seals Of Nam website http://www.sites.google.com/site/thesealsofnam/

Or find us on Facebook

http://www.facebook.com/TheSealsOfNam

Thank you for your support.

The Seals Of Nam

Video Original: http://blueseals.org/index/mission2/32

Mysterious African 'Fairy Circles' Stump Scientists

ORIGINAL: Live Science

Stephanie Pappas, LiveScience Senior Writer

27 June 2012

Mysterious bare spots called "fairy circles" dotting the sandy desert grasslands of Nambia have long stumped scientists who have no idea how the strange patterns form. CREDIT: Mike and Ann Scott of the NamibRand Nature Reserve

In the sandy desert grasslands of Namibia in southern Africa, mysterious bare spots known as "fairy circles" will form and then disappear years later for no reason anyone can determine. A new look at these strange patterns doesn't solve the wistful mystery but at least reveals that the largest of the circles can linger for a lifetime.

Small fairy circles stick around an average of 24 years, while larger ones can exist as long as 75 years, according to research detailed today (June 27) in the journal PLoS ONE. Still, the study sheds little light on why the circles form , persist and then vanish into the landscape after decades.

"The why question is very difficult," said study researcher Walter Tschinkel, a biologist at Florida State University. "There are a number of hypotheses on the table, and the evidence for none of them is convincing." [ See Photos of Fairy Circles ]

Circles of life (and death)

Tschinkel grew interested in fairy circles during a 2005 safari to NamibRand Nature Reserve in southwest Namibia, in the Namib Desert. It was his first experience with the round clearings, tens of thousands of which expose the red sandy soil in the area. A short time after the circles form, a tall ring of grass grows around the border, highlighting the bare area.

The smallest are about 6.5 feet (2 meters) in diameter, while the largest can be almost 40 feet (12 m) across. Eventually, plants move back in, re-colonizing the circles and leaving only slightly indented "ghost circles" behind. CREDIT: Mike and Ann Scott of the Namib Rand Nature Reserve

Few researchers have studied fairy circles, in part because of their remoteness, 111 miles (180 km) from the nearest village. It's an arid landscape where springbok, ostriches, leopards and other large animals roam, Tschinkel told LiveScience.

"It's like dying and going to heaven if you like remote, beautiful desert places," he said.

At first glance, Tschinkel assumed the circles marked underground nests of harvester termites. But digs have shown no evidence of termite nests under fairy circles. Other explanations, such as differences in soil nutrients or the death of seedlings by toxic vapors from the ground, have likewise failed to hold up to study.

In fact, little was known even about the life cycle of the circles, Tschinkel said. With the help of the nature reserve's staff, satellite images and aerial photos, he set out to change that. By comparing satellite images from 2004 and 2008, he found that circles are quite stable, popping up at nearly their full size, or growing quickly to full size once they get started. The smallest are about 6.5 feet (2 meters) in diameter, while the largest can be almost 40 feet (12 m) across. Winds scour the bare areas of soil, turning them into slight depressions. Eventually plants move back in, recolonizing the circles and leaving only slightly indented "ghost circles" behind. [ Gallery: Aerial Photos Reveal Mysterious Stone Structures ]

Assuming that the overall number of fairy circles on the landscape is fairly steady, Tschinkel used the satellite photos to look at how quickly the circles go from birth to maturity to revegetation. That yielded rough estimates of the circles' life spans. Most probably exist for 30 to 60 years, Tschinkel said.

Persisting mystery

Tschinkel was able to bolster these estimates thanks to a fundraising effort by the Namib Rand Nature Reserve, which sells sponsorships to fairy circles. The sponsored circles are marked with a ceramic plate, and their GPS coordinates are recorded. Over the 10 years of the sponsorship program, staff members have checked on the status of the sold circles. Their data yielded similar age ranges for fairy circles as the satellite images did, Tschinkel found.

He also determined that the circles form only on sandy soil with minimal stoniness, and that they don't form on shifting dunes or alluvial fans, where sands are deposited by water.

Some of Tschinkel's experiments are still ongoing, but so far, they've generated no leads on the circles' origins. Tschinkel suspects the circles are the product of some form of natural self-organization by plants.

"There are some mathematical models that are based on the idea that plants can withdraw resources toward themselves, which has a positive feedback on plant growth where they're located, but it has a negative effect on plants at a greater distance," he said.

Computer models based on this math can generate landscapes that look a bit like the fairy circle fields of Namibia, he said. But even if that hypothesis is on the right track, it doesn't explain how the plants are creating this pattern, not when hoarding soil nutrients and some other possible factors have already been ruled out.

With few people studying the circles — and no funding for chasing down the mysteries of the landscape of southern Africa — Tschinkel said the fairy circles will likely remain an enigma.

"I'm not too worried that this mystery is going to be solved anytime soon," he said. And the persistence of the mystery makes it ever more intriguing.

"That's science, isn't it?" Tschinkel said. "If you knew the answer ahead of time, it wouldn't be much fun."

Follow Stephanie Pappas on Twitter @sipappas or LiveScience @livescience . We're also on Facebook & Google+ .

China grabbing up uranium to secure nuclear lead

ORIGINAL: Smart Planet

By Mark Halper 

March 19, 2012

China Guangdong Nuclear Power is discussing partnering with Rio Tinto in Namibia's Rossing uranium mine (above) and the nearby giant Husab uranium project, which China Guangdong has acquired.

More signs that China will lead the world in nuclear power: The country is snapping up a significant chunk of the world’s supply of uranium in part by buying mines in Africa and making deals with Canada to secure the nuclear fuel.

China is on track to build up to 100 nuclear reactors by 2030. It already has 27 of those under construction, as a path away from the polluting, CO2-emitting coal-fired plants that supply 80 percent of its electricity. The country looks likely to vault into the top position of nuclear generating nations - 100 new reactors would be nearly a quarter of the 435 nuclear power reactors that are commercially generating electricity in the world today.

Chinatown: China Guangdong now controls
Namibia's promising Husab uranium project
about 45 miles inland from coastal Swakopmund.

Securing a supply of uranium is crucial to  its - and any country’s - near-term and longer nuclear future, since uranium will for some time remain the fuel that powers nuclear reactors. And that is exactly what China is doing, with trademark aggressiveness.

Today, Chinese nuclear company China Guangdong Nuclear Power Group strengthened its recently acquired control of Namibia’s giant Husab uranium project by buying an additional 14.2 percent share of the mine’s former owner, Australia’s Extract Resources, Dow Jones is reporting.

Husab is believed to hold the world’s fourth largest uranium-only deposit. Namibia is the world’s fourth largest uranium producing country after Kazakhstan, Canada and Australia, according to i-Nuclear.

China Guangdong had within the last six weeks already acquired majority ownership of Extract and the Namibian site. It gained a large chunk on Feb. 7  when it acquired Kalahari Minerals plc, a British uranium and gold mining company that owned 43 percent of Extract.

Namibia

China Guangdong and British mining giant Rio Tinto are also discussing jointly operating Husab and the vast Rossing uranium mine, according to an article last month by Bloomberg Businessweek. Rio owns Rossing, which is about 4 miles from Husab in western Namibia, about 45 miles from the coast.

The Indian website Firstpost cites China Daily noting that China as a whole - there are many nuclear companies in China in addition to China Guangdong - ”plans to import more uranium this year and is busy scouting to buy uranium mines abroad.”  China already buys 95 percent of the uranium that comes from Kazakhstan, Namibia, Australia and Uzbekistan, it says. Furthermore, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper recently agreed to export more uranium to China.

Canon Bryan, CEO of  Vancouver-based nuclear fuel company Thorium One, pointed out to SmartPlanet that those five countries between them produce 73.5 percent of the world’s uranium, and are all among the planet’s top seven uranium producers.

“If China is buying all their production, where do the other 29 countries with reactors get their supply from?” asks Bryan, who is also CEO of a uranium company, Vico Energy. “Note also that when China buys uranium - or when any utility buys uranium - they do not only buy enough for a few months. They typically enter into futures contracts to buy several years of supply for at least one power station.”

China’s uranium grab won’t matter as much to countries like Germany that have sworn (for now, anyway) to eventually disconnect nuclear power following the meltdowns at Fukushima in Japan a year ago. But countries including France, the UK, the U.S., India and others must keep a sharper eye than ever on uranium supply.

“Demand for uranium is rising as developing countries including China construct new nuclear power plants, coinciding with a deficit in supplies,” Bloomberg Businessweek noted. “The price of nuclear fuel may rise 15 percent to $60 a pound this year after a slump that followed the Fukushima nuclear disaster, according to the median of the five analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.”

Nuclear power countries also have another recourse: They could abandon uranium, and switch to thorium fuel, which augurs safer, less weapons prone, and more efficient nuclear reactors that do not produce the long lived and dangerous waste that uranium reactors do.

Any thorium program would require several years or more for development - although it could draw on the substantial research that took place in the 1950s and 1960s  -  and for regulatory approval,

But other nuclear nations need to get cracking here, too, because guess which country is squarely on the thorium advancement trail (while also building uranium reactors)? Clue: its capital is Beijing.

Photo of Rossing mine by lkiwaner. Namibia map by BlueMars. Namibia/Africa map by Alvaro1984 18. All via Wikipedia.