If you’re like me, and carry small bottles of Purell in your car and purse, as well as at the bathroom and kitchen sink, because either you just hate germs, or like me, you have a compromised health system, there’s hope. Here’s Part One:

“Nasty germs, look out. Here comes another weapon against you and your creepy bacterial and microscopic friends. It‘s the Raycop anti-bacterial vacuum, now available in the U.S. and shining its ultraviolet light on all things small and dangerous. Adding to the fun is a serious 360-beat-per-minute vibrator that can shake all those mites and varmints loose from those fibers to which they cling, freeing them up for some serious suckage. As soon as any of those vermin are exposed to the old ultraviol, it’s bye bye, bugs.

Ultraviolet light as germ killer has been getting a lot of play lately, handy for taking down all kinds of things we don’t want around. Take a look at this list of favorite devices for germaphobes we compiled last week, and you’ll see many of the items gain their strength from the purple lights. Too bad this little hand-held Raycop costs $250, but then, what price total cleanliness?’

http://dvice.com/archives/2008/02/raycop_handheld.php

And there’s more from http://dvice.com/archives/2008/02/top_10_gadgets.php:

“We are all so petrified of germs, we turn to the highest tech to get rid of them, every last one. But that’s not going to be easy. In sheer numbers, there are 20 times more creepy crawlies in your body than cells. Heck, there are 500 species of bacteria, weighing 3.3 pounds, living in your gut alone! But those 90 trillion microbes living in and on your body right now aren’t what should be worrying us. Many of them are vital to our survival, and we want to keep them around. However, sometimes malevolent invaders try to blend in with that helpful crowd of flora and fauna. Those villains are the ones we want to kill, so click Continue to discover the top 10 gadgets that’ll help us do just that.

10. VIOlight Toothbrush Sanitizer

Rearrange the DNA of those puny microscopic pests camping out on your toothbrush with the ultraviolet light inside this $49 VIOlight in either travel or home versions. Once you’ve illuminated those germs for ten minutes with various wavelengths of UV light, you’ll have the cleanest toothbrush in town. Well, until you put it back into that potty mouth of yours.

http://dvice.com/archives/2008/02/top_10_gadgets.php

According to the VIOlight website:

“A single toothbrush can harbor millions of microorganisms, which translate into harmful bacteria — bacteria that thrive in the warm, moist environment of the average bathroom.

VIOlight stops these microorganisms dead in their track. Independent studies prove that the patent-pending VIOlight system eliminates up to 99.9% of bacteria that thrive on your toothbrush. That’s millions of microscopic bugs that can cause flu, colds and other illnesses, zapped in minutes!

“Even after being rinsed visibly clean, toothbrushes can remain contaminated with potentially pathogenic organisms.”
— The Centers for Disease Control, January 2002 report
As Easy as Brush, Store and Sanitize
VIOlight uses a germicidal UV bulb — the same technology used in hospitals — to kill germs. Sanitization is activated with a simple push of a button. A blue-violet glow on top of the VIOlight lets you know the sanitizer is working. The entire process takes only 10 minutes. When finished, the bulb automatically shuts off and your toothbrush is fresh, clean, and protected for the next time you brush!”

http://www.violight.com/about.html

9. Just Plane Clean

When you’re wedged into a flying tin can full of hacking, microbe-spewing meat puppets, you’re going to need some heavy air filtering. Snap the Plane Clean Filter onto that ventilation nozzle above your head, and its stale breeze will still smell rank, but at least there will be a few less funky pathogens in the air. We have our doubts about this one; it’ll cost ya $20 to be the guinea pig.

http://dvice.com/archives/2008/02/top_10_gadgets.php

According to Plane Clean Filter’s website:

“Plane Clean Air
has been tested in an FDA certified lab and is shown to remove 99.5% of all airborne bacteria, viruses and allergens from your airstream.

So the next time you fly, make sure you travel the healthy way, by using
Plane Clean Air

Product Description

The Plane Clean Air Filter is a compact device that can be attached to a passenger’s overhead gasper nozzle. Plane Clean Air houses an electrostatic charged filter media that is capable of removing viruses, bacteria and other particulate matter from an air stream. A thin air gasket is attached to the entrance port of the filter housing. Plane Clean Air is designed for attachment to most gasper configurations (Airbus and Boeing) using the adhesive on the air gasket.

Plane Clean Air filter is installed by removing a release liner from the adhesive on the air gasket and mounting the device directly to the face of the gasper. Air flow velocity can be controlled by rotating the housing which in turn rotates the gasper. Once the desired air flow rate is achieved, the air stream can be directed onto the user’s face by turning the air exit nozzle.

At the end of the flight, Plane Clean Air can be detached easily and placed in its storage case. The air gasket adhesive is formulated to hold the product securely but will not leave any adhesive residue on the gasper surface when removed. The adhesive and filter are designed to last for several flights. Replacement adhesive gaskets and filter media can be purchased when required.”

http://www.planecleanair.com/index.html

8. Hands-Free Soap Dispenser

Your bathroom can be touch-free, starting with this $40 SimpleHuman Sensor Soap Pump. Let’s hope it doesn’t require some fancy macarena-style hand motions to get the flow started. Fill it up with Purell for more antibacterial goodness; rinse, repeat.

http://dvice.com/archives/2008/02/top_10_gadgets.php

According to SimpleHuman Sensor Soap Pump’s website:

“The sensor soap pump dispenses soap touch-free to help avoid cross-contamination. Simply place your hand under the sensor to dispense soap automatically. An optional LED light timer blinks for 20 seconds to indicate how long to lather for germ-free hands. Four volume settings allow the pump to dispense preset amounts of soap or lotion.

Ideal for dispensing hand or dishwashing soap by a kitchen or bathroom sink. Also can be used to dispense hand lotion.

materials

• rustproof chrome-plated top cover
• stainless steel backsplash
• clear acrylic soap chamber

capacity

• 14 oz.

built-in light timer

Optional light timer blinks for 20 seconds for germ-free hands.

continuous dispensing button

Hold down the continuous dispensing button to manually dispense soap directly on items.

built-in light timer

Optional light timer blinks for 20 seconds for germ-free hands.

easy to refill

Large, easy to refill opening.

four volume settings

Allows you to dispense larger or smaller amounts of soap.

touch-free operation

Dispenses soap automatically through a touch-free sensor.

battery-operated

operates on 4 “AA” batteries
(not included)”

http://www.simplehuman.com/products/soap-pumps/sensor-soap-pump.html

7. Nanotech Dresses

These two cotton dresses, created by fiber scientists and a student designer at Cornell University, have metallic nanofabers sewn in, giving them remarkable germ-fighting capabilities. Not a single microbe can survive on these garments, and they never need washing, either. Yeah, make me some socks out of this stuff — we’ll see if they never need washing or not. Too bad the material costs $10,000 per square yard.

http://dvice.com/archives/2008/02/top_10_gadgets.php

According to Cornell Online:

“Fashion designers and fiber scientists at Cornell have taken “functional clothing” to a whole new level. They have designed a garment that can prevent colds and flu and never needs washing, and another that destroys harmful gases and protects the wearer from smog and air pollution.

The two-toned gold dress and metallic denim jacket, featured at the April 21 Cornell Design League fashion show, contain cotton fabrics coated with nanoparticles that give them functional qualities never before seen in the fashion world.

Designed by Olivia Ong ‘07 in the College of Human Ecology’s Department of Fiber Science and Apparel Design, the garments were infused with their unusual qualities by fiber science assistant professor Juan Hinestroza and his postdoctoral researcher Hong Dong. Apparel design assistant professor Van Dyke Lewis launched the collaboration by introducing Ong to Hinestroza several months ago.

Nicole Grospe ‘07, left, and Andrea Clark ‘07 model clothing designed by Olivia Ong ‘07, at the Cornell Design League fashion show. The dress and jacket contain nanoparticles with antibacterial and air-purifying qualities.

“We think this is one of the first times that nanotechnology has entered the fashion world,” Hinestroza said. He noted one drawback may be the garments’ price: one square yard of nano-treated cotton would cost about $10,000.

Ong’s dress and jacket, part of her original fashion line called “Glitterati,” look innocently hip. But closer inspection — with a microscope, that is — shows an army of electrostatically charged nanoparticles creating a protective shield around the cotton fibers in the top part of the dress, and the sleeves, hood and pockets of the jacket.

“It’s something really moving toward the future, and really advanced,” said Ong, who graduates in December and aspires to design school. “I thought this could potentially be what fashion is moving toward.”

Dong explained that the fabrics were created by dipping them in solutions containing nanoparticles synthesized in Hinestroza’s lab. The resultant colors are not the product of dyes, but rather, reflections of manipulation of particle size or arrangement.

The upper portion of the dress contains cotton coated with silver nanoparticles. Dong first created positively charged cotton fibers using ammonium- and epoxy-based reactions, inducing positive ionization. The silver particles, about 10-20 nanometers across (a nanometer is one-billionth of a meter) were synthesized in citric acid, which prevented nanoparticle agglomeration.

Hong Dong/Provided

A scanning electron microscope image shows a cotton fiber with palladium nanoparticle coating.

Assistant professor Juan Hinestroza and postdoctoral researcher Hong Dong, in their Martha Van Rensselaer Hall lab.

Dipping the positively charged cotton into the negatively charged silver nanoparticle solution resulted in the particles clinging to the cotton fibers.

Silver possesses natural antibacterial qualities that are strengthened at the nanoscale, thus giving Ong’s dress the ability to deactivate many harmful bacteria and viruses. The silver infusion also reduces the need to wash the garment, since it destroys bacteria, and the small size of the particles prevents soiling and stains.

The denim jacket includes a hood, sleeves and pockets with soft, gray tweed cotton embedded with palladium nanoparticles, about 5-10 nanometers in length. To create the material, Dong placed negatively charged palladium crystals onto positively charged cotton fibers.

Ong, though strictly a designer, was drawn especially to the science behind creating the anti-smog jacket.

“I thought it would be cool if [wearers] could wipe their hands on their sleeves or pockets,” Ong said.

Ong incorporated the resultant cotton fiber into a jacket with the ability to oxidize smog. Such properties would be useful for someone with allergies, or for protecting themselves from harmful gases in the contaminated air, such as in a crowded or polluted city.”

http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/May07/nanofibers.fashion.aj.html

6. Zapper Kills Bugs Dead

You don’t actually want to put your hands anywhere near those grimy houseflies, do you? This $13 Electric Bug Zapper is like a lethal Taser for any insect, testament to the cruel fact that if you’re a bug, trespassing in someone’s house warrants the death penalty.

http://dvice.com/archives/2008/02/top_10_gadgets.php

According to Northline Express.com:

“Here is a fast, easy, hygienic, and more effective way to eliminate those pesky flying insects. The Handheld Bug Zapper, similar to the shape of a badminton racket, is lightweight and with the push of two buttons emits a low level electrical current that halts mosquitoes, flies, gnats and other flying pests in their tracks.
Environmentally safe, the zapper can be used indoors and outdoors. The zapper glows-in-the-dark, so when sitting around that campfire it is guaranteed not to get lost. Made of durable ABS plastic and measures almost 17″ long it will provide comfort from pests for anyone wanting to enjoy those summer evenings. And it’s fun to use!
Caution: This is not a toy. Keep out of reach of children.
Editors Note: This product works amazingly well both indoors and outdoors – we highly recommend it!”

• Measures 16 3/4″ long by 7 1/2″ across
• Weighs less than a pound
• 2 Button Safety Design
• Glow in the Dark
• Safe for indoor or outdoor use
• 2 AA batteries included
• Weight: 1.00LB
• Model: 40050GE “

http://www.northlineexpress.com/itemdesc.asp?ic=5MB-40050GE&source=shopping&kw=5MB-40050GE

5. Germ-Killing Surface

You do realize that your hands are even more germ-infested than a toilet seat, right? Keeping that in mind, the loo will be many times cleaner than you when it’s someday equipped with a nano particle surface made of titanium dioxide. Aussie innovators in the Particles and Catalysts Research Group at the University of New South Wales created the substance that not only cleans itself, it repels water, too. Still in the developmental stage, expect the sparkling surface to be coming soon to a water closet near you.

http://dvice.com/archives/2008/02/top_10_gadgets.php

According to the Paul Tech Network Blog:

“It’s a veritable god-send to all women with slob significant others. Accustomed to sitting in the filth left by their so-called loved ones, women had become listless – feeling trapped in an endless cycle of degradation, shame, and rage. Fear not, Aussies have come up with a way to lift women out of this filthy cycle. Toilet Rage – Be Gone!

Researchers at the Particles and Catalysts Research Group, University of New South Wales, have come up with a nano particle surface that can autoclean itself. The surface is made of titanium dioxide, which has better oxidizing ability than chlorine bleach. It used to be only activated only when exposed to ultra violet light, but signs are there that they may be overcoming that obstacle. The surface is hydrophobic, so it repels water. So, the coated surface would kill germs and water would slide away. There is hope!”

http://gopaultech.com/blog/2008/02/germ-killing-toilet-surface/

4. Philips Sonicare FlexCare Toothbrush

Not only does this $100 Philips electric toothbrush sonically vibrate that plaque into oblivion, now the company has picked up on the ultraviolet bug-killing kick, too. Just pop those brush heads into the mini-tanning booth attached to the toothbrush’s base, and all those nasty squirmy worms are cooked up like a lobster in a boiling pot.

http://dvice.com/archives/2008/02/top_10_gadgets.php

From an earlier DVice article on it:

“As effective as Philips’ Sonicare electric toothbrushes may be, one thing I’ve always felt they lacked was radiation. Well, my dream has come true now that Philips has developed the FlexCare toothbrush, which includes a UV sanitizer built into the charger. After you’re done brushing, you remove the head from the brush and seal it in the chamber. One press of a button later and the sanitizer bathes the head with ultraviolet radiation, sterilizing the bristles and preventing any germ buildup. And possibly giving it a tan.

The FlexCare has other upgrades, too: The head’s base is smaller to make it easier to clean, and there are multiple brushing modes, including one for sensitive mouths and another for massaging gums. The FlexCare is coming in August for $180. If you just bought one of Sonicare’s current brushes, you can still get in on the UV-radiation fun with a standalone sanitizer for $50. See a couple of pics of that after the jump.”

http://dvice.com/archives/2007/06/sonicare_flexcare_toothbrush_r.php

http://www.sonicare.com/default.asp

3. Lotus Sanitizing System

This $150 magic bowl turns ordinary H2O into superoxygenated water that can clean everything in your house, neutralize odors, kill microbes and even rid foods of pesticides. Cure all known diseases? Well, they’re not going that far. Either dip whatever you want super-cleaned into the bowlful of cleansing water, or put that special water in a spray bottle to spread its goodness hither and yon. Sounds like snake oil. Does it work? Time magazine thought so.

http://dvice.com/archives/2008/02/top_10_gadgets.php

From the Tersano website:

“lotus Sanitizing System – How It Works

The lotus® patent® technology infuses cold tap water with an extra oxygen atom, creating a natural sanitizer. By passing air through 4,500 volts of electricity, the lotus® system splits oxygen molecules into atoms and forces this extra atom to combine and form super-oxygen. The third oxygen atom becomes the sanitizing agent, a natural oxidant — which kills bacteria and viruses, and neutralizes pesticides.

http://www.tersano.com/howitworks_lss.php

How Do I Know It Works

Built in sensors monitor and guarantee that the Oxyshield technology infusion process occurs in every cycle to safely create one of the most powerful, all-natural sanitizing agents in the world. The indicator on the unit will reach 100% once the water has been fully activated.

1. Simply fill the spray bottle with cold tap water and place on the base unit. Select the appropriate button and start the process. In about two minutes the lotus water is ready to be used for up to 1 hour to clean. EPA registered to kill 99.99% of bacteria and viruses during the first 15 minutes. A count down timer on the unit tells you that it is time to reload and recharge.
2. When using the bowl attachment we recommend that the produce is washed and rid of any dirt before sanitizing. Maximum bacteria and pesticide reduction may be achieved after 4 minutes but may take up to 8 minutes if the produce is highly saturated with contaminants. Once the lotus process shows 100% complete your produce is free of pesticide residues and bacteria making the produce taste better and last up to 4 times longer!

View the test results that were run on the lotus Sanitizing System.

Product Claims

• EPA registered for produce and household surfaces
• FDA and USDA approved process for food sanitation
• UL ,CSA, GS, CE and CQC tested and approved
• Kills 99.9 % of:
  • Escherichia coli (E. coli)
  • Salmonella choloeraesuis (Salmonella)
  • Staphylococcus aureus (Staph)
  • Listeria monocytogenes (Listeria)
  • Klebsiella pneumonia (K. Pneumonia)
• Works 3000 times faster and 50% more powerful than chlorine bleach
• Kills bacteria within seconds
• Has no toxic residue or by-products
• Scent-free, leaves no residual fragrance
• Kills bacteria that cause food to decay, increasing shelf life up to 4 times!
• Destroys up to 99% of pesticides
• Improves the taste of foods or other edible products
• Kills up to 99% of odor causing bacteria
• Recognized by Time Magazine as one of the “Best Inventions”

http://www.tersano.com/howdoiknowitworks_lss.php

Healthy Home – Where Do I Use lotus?

• Windows/Mirrors
• Stain Remover on Carpets and Fabric
• Kitchen Counters
• Granite, Marble and Slate Counter Tops(porous)
• Wood Surfaces
• Dust mites
• Floors
• Sinks
• Toilets
• Shower and Bathtub
• Appliances
• Stainless Steel

• Kills Mold and Mildew
• Pet Dander/Odor, Stain Remover
• Room/Closet Deodorizing
• Smokers area
• Cars/RV/Boat Interiors
• Carpet and Upholstery Stain Remover
• Toothbrushes
• Baby toys
• Baby Bottles/Pacifiers
• Baby’s Highchair
• Personal Grooming Tools
• Sanitizes Fruits and Vegetables

Replace all types of chemical cleaners!

• Windex® Vinegar Multi Surface
• Windex® Antibacterial
• Oxi Clean® Carpet Stain Remover
• Fantastik® Bleach
• Clorox® Ultimate Care
• Mr. Clean® Magic Eraser
• Pine Sol® Fresh lemon Floor Cleaner
• Lysol® All Purpose
• Febreze® Anti-microbial deodorizer
• Bissell® Pet Stain Remover

• Urine Gone™ Stain and odor Eliminator
• Febreze® Extra Strength deodorizer
• Pledge® Stainless Steel
• Pledge® Extra Moisturizing furniture polish
• Tilex® Soap Scum
• Tilex® Fresh Shower
• Tilexv Mold and Mildew
• Air Wick® with Baking Soda
• Hoover® Spot and Stain Remover
• Shout® Spot Remover

Even replace all these types of “Green” products

• Clean Veggie Spray
• Carpet Stain Remover
• Window Cleaner
• Cleaning Lotion
• Pet Stain & Odor
• All Kitchen and Bath Cleaner
• Clean Veggie Wash

• Tub & Tile Cleaner
• Liquid Bleach
• Vinegar
• Baking Soda
• Lemon Juice
• Extract Oils
• Furniture Polish”

http://www.tersano.com/healthyhome.php

And Time Magazine’s Best Inventions of 2006:

MEALS INVENTIONS

Clean Machine
“In the wake of the spinach scare, even the friendliest food can seem like a biological hazard, and scrubbing alone won’t necessarily wipe out pesticides or bacteria. The Lotus Sanitizing System turns ordinary tap water into superoxygenated water that kills microbes and removes toxins. The machine uses an electrical charge to infuse the tap water with ozone, which sounds scarier than it is–it just means the water carries a form of oxygen that acts as a natural sanitizer.
Inventor: Tersano
Availability Now; $200
To learn more visit tersano.com“

http://www.time.com/time/2006/techguide/bestinventions/inventions/meals4.html

2. Halo UVX Vacuum

The $400 Halo UVX’s ultraviolet bug-killing light not only smites mites and the ever-present dust bunnies to which they cling, its makers say it can even kill viruses. If it can do that, those common household bacteria and common rug funk should be no match for this snarling, wheezing, purple-illuminated beast.

http://dvice.com/archives/2008/02/top_10_gadgets.php

According to Halo’s website:

“What is the Halo™ UVX Ultraviolet Vacuum?

The Halo™ UVX Ultraviolet Vacuum is the first in a line of the world’s only germ-killing vacuums. That means that the Halo™ UVX not only vacuums the dirt from your floor, but it is the only chemical-free floor-care solution that can kill dust mites, germs, viruses like MRSA and bacteria living in your carpet and home. These are all allergens that can lead to allergies and asthma.

Can you use attachments with the Halo™ UVX Ultraviolet Vacuum?

The Halo UVX, does not include attachments. The most concentrated sources of dust mites and other such allergens are in the home’s carpet and mattresses. We wanted our initial solution to concentrate solely on this problem. If you are interested in attachments, please see our Halo UV-ST.

How much does the Halo™ UVX Ultraviolet Vacuum weigh?

Approximately 15 pounds.

Where can I purchase a Halo™ UVX Ultraviolet Vacuum?

While many online and brick-and-mortar retailers have the Halo™ UVX Ultraviolet Vacuum, we suggest you click on our “Buy Now” link to purchase it.

Do any replacement bags come with the Halo™ UVX Ultraviolet Vacuum?

Yes. A replacement pack of five Halo UVX bags come with the product. Additional replacement bags can be purchased through our website.

How do I know it works?

See our Science and Technology section.

What do I do if I need to replace my ultraviolet bulb? Where can I take my Halo™ UVX Ultraviolet Vacuum for repairs?

Our ultraviolet bulb has been tested so extensively that we are confident it will never need to be replaced. Due to this, the bulb is covered under a lifetime warranty. The Halo UVX is covered under a one year warranty as well. However, if there are any problems, we suggest first taking a look at your Owner’s Safety and Operation Manual to troubleshoot your problem. If you are still having difficulties, please call our Customer Service line at 1-866-638-HALO (4256) and a member of our team will be happy to help you.

Will it fade or burn my carpet?

When used appropriately (as outlined in the Owners Safety and Operation Manual), the Halo™ UVX Ultraviolet Vacuum will not fade or damage carpets, rugs, floors, mattresses or other surfaces.

How long does the UV-C bulb last?

The UV-C bulb is estimated to last 8,000 hours and we anticipate that it would never need to be replaced. Due to this, the bulb is covered under a lifetime warranty.

Why does the Halo™ UVX Ultraviolet Vacuum use a bag when “bagless” is so popular right now?

Our goal was to design a vacuum that exposed the family to the least amount of allergens. Bagless vacuums expose the user to the vacuumed allergens when emptying the bagless canister.

Does this vacuum have any belts that need to be replaced?

The Halo UVX Ultraviolet Vacuum was designed for convenience, ease-of-use and ultimately, exceptional performance. With this in mind, the Halo UVX employs gears, not belts, to power to brush bar, so there are no belts that can break or to change.

Does this vacuum have any belts that need to be replaced?

The Halo UVX Ultraviolet Vacuum was designed for convenience, ease-of-use and ultimately, exceptional performance. With this in mind, the Halo UVX employs gears, not belts, to power to brush bar, so there are no belts that can break or to change.

Does the Halo™ UVX Ultraviolet Vacuum have “True HEPA” filtration?

Yes. The Halo™ UVX Ultraviolet Vacuum uses a premium cloth bag, then the air is also filtered through an odor removing carbon filter before the air exits the units via a True HEPA filter. The air exiting our unit is cleaner than the typical air found in homes.

Will the bulb area get hot during operation?

No. The UVX’s patent-pending bulb chamber has been designed to pull the UV-C light bulb heat away from the bulb chamber.

What is the Halo™ 30 Day Risk Free Trial Period?

The Halo™ 30 Day Risk Free Trial allows you to purchase and try the product in the comfort of your own home to see if it’s right for you. Vacuum your carpets, kill the allergens in your home, try it out. If for any reason you are not completely satisfied, just call our Customer Service at 866-638-HALO (4256) and we’ll pick up the vacuum and refund your money, no questions asked.

Why is this revolutionary vacuum so reasonably priced?

The first ultraviolet vacuum from Halo™ is designed to be as affordable as possible. At Halo™, we realize that many people suffer from allergies or asthma, or are seeking ways in which to have a cleaner home that provides a healthier environment for their families. It is our mission to create innovative products that make families healthier

How does the Halo UVX compare to it’s competitors regarding pick-up?

Halo outperforms best selling traditional vacuums in regards to pick up of debris according to an ASTM test method for evaluating dirt removal effectiveness. In addition to testing, our vacuums also employ an energy-efficient design that delivers more power with less energy consumption. We achieve this with two strategically placed motors: one to generate powerful suction and one to drive the brush bar. The benefit of the dual motor design is that when using the brush bar, performance is never compromised.”

http://www.gethalo.com/faqs/2

AND from CNET Asia – Crave Blog comes:

Step aside Roomba, here comes Ultraviolet

Juniper Foo | Jan 03, 2008

“Not the Ultraviolet of the Milla Jovovich movie fame, but this killing machine sucks just as much. Thanks to the UV-C technology that’s onboard, its ultraviolet light is said to instantly vaporize dust mites, bacteria, viruses, mold, flea eggs and other unseen creepy-crawlies lurking in the carpet and flooring.
As the first such vacuum to use UV-C light in addition to suction capability, the US$499 Halo Ultraviolet Vacuum leaves others eating its dust trail. And being a pet owner, this one gets my thumbs up for zapping those invisible house guests sans chemicals. Now all that’s needed is for the Halo Ultraviolet Vacuum to do the dirty work sans cords and human help just like the Roomba, and this one gets my money.”

http://asia.cnet.com/crave/2008/01/03/step-aside-roomba-here-comes-ultraviolet/

1. Samsung SilverCare Washer

Using nanotech to release molecules of silver into your wash water, Samsung says this washer kills 99.9% of “tested bacteria” (whatever that is), even when using cold water and no bleach. Consumer Reports says the $1400 washer’s SilverCare setting actually made some stinky t-shirts smell a whole lot better than those washed the normal way, but it took an extra 6 to 24 minutes per load to release those magical bug-killing silver nanoparticles.

http://dvice.com/archives/2008/02/top_10_gadgets.php

Samsung says:

“SilverCare™ technology

An advanced energy-saving technology with superb microbe killing capabilities. The sanitization process this provides without the use of hot water saves up to 92% of the energy used in traditional hot water processes. It is also is gentler on clothes which makes for longer use of your clothes and all things considered a fast payback on your investment.

know exactly what cycle you’re in

SAMSUNG’s easy to use display panel with its green display indicators let you know what’s going on at all times.

safety – always a factor

The child lock indicator reminds you when you are operating the child lock function. This ensures that children do not interfere with the operation of the machine.”

http://www.samsung.com/us/consumer/detail/detail.do?group=homeappliances&type=washersdryers&subtype=washers&model_cd=WF317AAG/XAA

And if that’s not enough:

Jetpack look-a-like kills foot odor and germs in one shot

“The germaphobe community in Japan brings us yet another oddball gadget to put our minds at ease called the CH-3800 Shoes Dryer. Although the CH-3800 will quickly and efficiently remove the damp sidewalk sweat from your shoes, the device’s ozone anti-bacterial function is what takes it into geek-out territory.

Assuming you don’t mind constantly fielding questions regarding why you have a jet pack in your home attached to your shoes, at just 9,800 yen ($89.55) the CH-3800 Shoes Dryer is a relative bargain.”

http://dvice.com/archives/2007/11/jetpack_lookalike_kills_foot_o.php

AND:

Germ Killing Light Gun destroys bad germs

By Joe

“This looks more like a Star Trek toy or a weird cellphone, but in fact it’s a nano-technology germ killing weapon.
This device uses UV-C light to destroy 99.99% of the germs. Simply point the device to a spot and it will destroy all germs like E-Coli, staphylococcus, salmonella, flu, …
This device is not only perfect for people suffering Germaphobes (obsessive cleaning), it might come in handy for young children, to ensure minimal germ exposure.
This flip-weapon is available for $79.95 at Hammacher.”

http://www.gadgetcool.com/tags/germ/

AND:

CulinaryPrep – kitchen countertop germ busting gadget

“For a mere $400 USD you can have a peace of mind when it comes to your food safety. The germ busting gadget, CulinaryPrep kills bacteria and food born pathogens from poultry, meat, fish, and produce, including E.coli, listeria and salmonella. Applying the Grovac patented process, CulinaryPrep eliminates bacteria up to 99.5%, removes free radicals often associated with cancer from your food and reduces fat, sodium and salt levels. The results were proven by several independent studies, conducted by Kansas State University, LSU, Whitbeck and Warren Analytical Laboratories. As an added bonus, the CulinaryPrep will marinate your food while enhancing flavor and texture. This kitchen countertop germ busting gadget will be a great gift for Christmas.”

http://www.appliancist.com/small_appliances/culinaryprep-kitchen-counter-top-germ-busting-gadget.html

And MY personal favorite:

HYSO Doorknob Germ Killer

After imagining he was inside a woman’s restroom—something we’ve all done at one time or…sorry, where were we?—Simon Sassoon devised a gadget that automatically kills germs on public doorknobs. Want to see what two years and $250,000 worth of investment money gets you? That’s it on the right.

Every fifteen minutes, this $60 device sprays a mist of “hospital-grade disinfectant” onto the knob, killing whatever post-urination/defecation residue got transferred to the knob after being handled by hundreds of people.

Those in the hygiene brigade can reel off dozens of reasons all strangers are potential enemies: virulent flu seasons, packed airplanes with stale air, buses where no one covers a mouth when sneezing. But social critics detect an element of hysteria in the germaphobia of Americans and suggest that at its root is a fear of a dangerous, out-of-control world.

http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/gadgets/hyso-doorknob-germ-killer-212800.php

So relax, companies are thinking of you…

Okay, so I’m a Richard Branson fan – ever since I watched his reality show, and how he lived life and viewed business. I have been impressed with his abilty to see the big picture, to think big, not small, and to dream. Sometimes he crashes and burns, but he gets right back up and starts all over again…

Virgin Earth Challenge

February 10, 2007 at 1:26 pm

Branson and Gore have created the “Virgin Earth Challenge” based on the X-Prize worth $25 million to create a way to solve the greenhouse gas problem.

Flanked by climate campaigners former US Vice President Al Gore and British ex-diplomat Crispin Tickell, Branson said he hoped the prize would spur innovative and creative thought to save mankind from self-destruction.

The prize will initially only be open for five years, with ideas assessed by a panel of judges including Branson, Gore and Tickell as well as US climate scientist James Hansen, Briton James Lovelock and Australian environmentalist Tim Flannery.

The winner will have to come up with a way of removing one billion tonnes of carbon gases a year from the atmosphere for 10 years, with $5 million of the prize being paid at the start and the remaining $20 million at the end.

The Ansari X-Prize showed what is possible. It enabled Virgin SpaceShip One and space travel for everybody (atleast those who could afford!). This will hopefully create something similar.

The prize denotes the best things about business. The drive, the incentives, the entrepreneurship, the targets, innovation and the ability to solve the greatest problems facing man.

Branson sometime back announced that he would invest almost $3 billion of his profits from the transportation business into companies like Virgin Fuels which can solve the earth’s problems and make money too.

BBC provides a graphic to show the present options in carbon capture.

1. CO2 pumped into disused coal fields displaces methane which can be used as fuel
2. CO2 can be pumped into and stored safely in saline aquifers
3. CO2 pumped into oil fields helps maintain pressure, making extraction easier http://worldisgreen.com/2007/02/10/virgin-earth-challenge/

$25 Million Offered In Climate Challenge

Tycoon Hopes to Spur Milestone Research

By Kevin Sullivan, Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, February 10, 2007;

“British billionaire entrepreneur Richard Branson, with former vice president Al Gore at his side, offered a $25 million prize Friday to anyone who can come up with a way to blunt global climate change by removing at least a billion tons of carbon dioxide a year from the Earth’s atmosphere.

Branson, saying that the “survival of our species” is imperiled by current environmental trends, said the prize was similar to cash inducements that led to some of history’s most notable achievements in navigation, exploration and industry. A competition launched in the 17th century, he said, resulted in the creation of a method to accurately estimate longitude.

Britain’s Richard Branson has enlisted Al Gore as a judge in contest to find a way to take carbon dioxide out of the air. (By Bruno Vincent — Getty Images)

“I believe in our resourcefulness and in our capacity to invent solutions to the problems we have ourselves created,” said Branson, who has pledged to invest $3 billion in profits from his transportation companies, including Virgin Atlantic Airlines and Virgin Trains, to fighting global warming.

“We are now facing a planetary emergency,” said Gore, whose documentary film, “An Inconvenient Truth,” has helped him become one of the world’s leading voices on climate change issues.

The former vice president will serve as a judge in the contest, known as the Virgin Earth Challenge. He said he hoped the contest would spur scientific innovation without distracting from more practical steps people can take to battle global warming, from using energy-efficient light bulbs to pressuring politicians to confront “the crisis of our time.”

“It’s a challenge to the moral imagination of humankind,” Gore said at a packed news conference, which several noted climate scientists and authors attended. Others provided videotaped endorsements or appeared by live video link.

Gore and Branson said that although scientists are working on technologies to capture carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases at power plants and other industrial sources, no one has developed a strategy to remove gases already released into the atmosphere. Those gases are contributing to a dramatic increase in global temperatures that could have catastrophic results in the coming decades, they said.

The winner of the contest must devise a plan to remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere without creating adverse effects. The first $5 million would be paid upfront, and the remainder of the money would be paid only after the program had worked successfully for 10 years.

“We’re nowhere” on technologies to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the air, Gore said. But he said he hoped innovators might be spurred not simply by the cash prize but also by a passion for working on what he called “a moral issue.”

Other judges in the competition are James E. Hansen, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies; British environmentalists and authors James Lovelock and Crispin Tickell; and Australian conservationist and author Tim Flannery.

Gore, Branson and the other panelists referred repeatedly to a study released last week by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, made up of hundreds of scientists from 113 countries, that concluded that human activity is warming the planet at a potentially disastrous and irreversible rate.

Gore dismissed critics who say the potential effects of climate change have been exaggerated. He said the overwhelming scientific evidence is that “the planet has a fever.” He likened the situation to parents told by a doctor that their child needs medical care; those parents shouldn’t listen to “some science fiction expert who tells you it isn’t real — you listen to the doctor.”

Gore said he believed public interest in climate change was growing in the United States. But asked whether he thought Americans were ready for a presidential campaign in which global warming was the central issue, he said, “We’re not there, yet.”

Branson and Gore said they hoped to ask the governments of the United States, Britain and other countries to add to the prize money, or even match the $25 million pledged by Branson. “I don’t have much influence with this administration,” Gore joked.

Gore, who barely lost the 2000 presidential election to President Bush, has experienced a resurgence in popularity among many Democrats and is still viewed as a potential dark horse candidate in 2008. On Friday, he said he would not categorically rule out another run for public office, but he said he “can’t foresee” any circumstances that would lead him to enter the race.

“I’m involved in a different kind of campaign,” Gore said.

Details on the $25 million competition can be found at http://www.virginearth.com

Special Report

Read complete Post coverage on the science and politics surrounding the threat of human-induced climate change.

IN THE GREENHOUSE: Follow the Post series on the science behind confronting a changing climate.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/09/AR2007020900693.html

Now here’s the scoop on the “prize”:

The Virgin Earth Challenge is a prize of $25m for whoever can demonstrate to the judges’ satisfaction a commercially viable design which results in the removal of anthropogenic, atmospheric greenhouse gases so as to contribute materially to the stability of Earth’s climate.

To encourage a viable technology which will result in the net removal of anthropogenic, atmospheric greenhouse gases each year for at least ten years without countervailing harmful effects.

Today, Sir Richard Branson and Al Gore announced the setting up of a new Global science and technology prize – The Virgin Earth Challenge – in the belief that history has shown that prizes of this nature encourage technological advancements for the good of mankind. The Virgin Earth Challenge will award $25 million to the individual or group who are able to demonstrate a commercially viable design which will result in the net removal of anthropogenic, atmospheric greenhouse gases each year for at least ten years without countervailing harmful effects. This removal must have long term effects and contribute materially to the stability of the Earth’s climate.

Sir Richard also announced that he would be joined in the adjudication of the Prize by a panel of five judges – all world authorities in their respective fields: Al Gore, Sir Crispin Tickell, Tim Flannery, Jim Hansen and James Lovelock. The panel of judges will be assisted in their deliberations by The Climate Group and Special Advisor to The Virgin Earth Prize Judges, Steve Howard (see Editors notes for biographies).

The timing of the announcement of the Virgin Earth Challenge was particularly apt given the recent findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Changes, which last week announced that temperatures on earth could increase by as much as 6.4C by the end of this Century.

The report, the most comprehensive to date from a UN Agency detailed the catastrophe results which even seemingly small temperature raises could have on our planet: at + 2.4C coral reefs around the world would become extinct; + 3.4C would result in the rain forests becoming deserts; an increase of + 4.4C would result in the ice caps melting and severe heat waves across the globe displacing millions; the IPCC further predicted that sea levels could rise by 5 metres if temperatures reached + 5.4C which would result in ten of millions of climate refugees.

For the first time ever a 6.4C raise was mentioned within UN predictions. If this were to occur it would result in most of life on our planet being exterminated.

Sir Richard Branson commented: “We all now know that something radical has got to be done to turn back the tide of global warming. By launching the $25 million Virgin Earth Challenge, the largest ever science and technology prize to be offered in history, we want to encourage scientists and individuals from around the world to come up with a way of removing lethal carbon dioxide from the earth’s atmosphere. By competing for this prize they will follow in the footsteps of many of history’s greatest inventors and innovators. But in this case potentially save the planet. It is our hope and belief that the winner of The Virgin Earth Challenge will help to reverse the collision course our beautiful world is currently on. They will not only make history but preserve history for many, many generations to come.

However, it is important to remember that there is a real possibility that no one will win this prize. Governments, and their people, must continue to use every effort to radically reduce CO2 emissions. “

The Virgin Earth Challenge will initially be open for five years; the judges will meet annually to determine whether a design has been submitted during the previous year that in their view should win the prize and, if so, they may award the prize without waiting for the five year period to elapse. If no winner has been selected at the end of five years, the judges may decide to roll the prize forward for a further period on the same.

Al Gore commented at today’s Press Conference: “Carbon dioxide levels already are far above anything measured in the prior 650,000 year record, and just last week in Paris scientists gave us their strongest warning yet of the consequences of inaction. So the dangers are clear. But the opportunities, if we take action now, are innumerable, and Sir Richard’s initiative to stimulate exploration of this new approach to the climate crisis is important and welcome.”

James Lovelock continued: “To escape the consequences of global heating we need far more than Kyoto, far more than renewable energy and sustainable development. What we need is a near miracle to undo the harm that we have done. Sir Richard Branson’s hugely generous prize could sow the seeds for a miraculous invention that would let us make a sustainable retreat to that lush and comfortable world we once knew. We have all spent far too long sleepwalking towards extinction.”

Sir Crispin Tickell: “We need a significant, lasting and harmless reduction in the volume of green house gases in the atmosphere. To this technology can make an important contribution. This Prize is a marvellous encouragement to all who have bright and practical ideas on how best to tackle one of the major problems of our time.”

Dr James Hansen, Director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies: “I think we have a very brief window of opportunity to deal with climate change … no longer than a decade, at the most. This is why I am supporting the Virgin Earth Challenge as a judge – we must explore all means, both known and unknown, to help alleviate this crisis.”

Tim Flannery, author of The Weather Makers, gave a stark warning on the cost of inaction: “If we continue as we are, humanity will so pollute our atmosphere this century that we will create another world, the likes of which has not been seen for 50 million years. And we will destroy human civilisation in the process.”

Sir Richard Branson concluded: “We would also like to call on governments and members of the international community to join us in The Virgin Earth Challenge by matching or adding to the prize pot available to encourage the greatest number of entrants of those who could come up with a solution which could save our planet. If the greatest minds in the world today compete, as I’m sure they will, for The Virgin Earth Challenge, I believe that a solution to the C02 problem could hopefully be found – a solution that could save our planet – not only for our children but for all the children yet to come.”

The creation of the Virgin Earth Prize is one of a number of initiatives including investment in renewable energy research, development and production as part of Virgin Group’s “Gaia Capitalism” project and 3 billion dollar Clinton Initiative pledge of September 2006.

Editor’s Notes:

Sir Richard Branson comments on the use of Prizes to fuel innovation: “History has shown that Technology Prizes have been invaluable in encouraging technological advancements and innovation in many, many areas of science and industry. From the very first recorded prize offered by the British government in 1714, offering three financial incentives to the inventor who developed a device capable of measuring longitude within a given degree of accuracy. The Prize, which has been immortalised in the book Longitude, was won by John Harrison, a self-educated clock maker. Harrison was awarded £20,000 in 1773 for devising an accurate and durable chronometer.

But prizes were not just the domain of the British; in the 18th Century the French also used Prizes as an incentive to fuel innovation. In 1775 a 100,000 franc prize was offered to the individual who could produce an artificial form of alkali – the wining of this prize was to form the basis of the French chemical industry. Today, vacuum packed food in our fridges and cupboards is nothing remarkable, but it may surprise some to know that it was actually a Prize offered by Napoleon in 1810 which led to Nicolas Appert coming up with a method of vacuum packing cooked food in glass bottles – it took him 15 years of experiments but in the end won him 12,000 francs!

It wasn’t long before newspapers and private sector companies became involved in setting up Prizes to encourage development in many areas. The American automobile industry was encouraged to grow through inducements to win prizes by competing in races set up by newspapers such as the Chicago Tribune in the late 19 th Century. Aviation and the development of long distance flying were greatly encouraged by similar prizes to those offered in America for the fledgling automobile industry. The Daily Mail prize for example, for the first flight across the Channel, was won byLouis Bleriot in 1909; and ten years later, Alcock and Brown won the Mail prize for crossing the Atlantic. Lindebergh was competing for a prize when he flew in the Spirit of St Louis, non-stop from New York to Paris in 1927. The Spitfire was the result of the Schneider trophy, which was a series of prizes for technological development.

The most recent technological Prize was awarded in the area of space travel, and is one that I have come to know very well – the Ansari X Prize – a $10 million dollar Prize set up by Peter Diamandis and funded by the Ansari family. The Ansari X Prize was won in 2004 by Paul Allen, Burt Rutan and Scaled Composites when they successfully flew SpaceShipOne to space and back twice within two weeks. The technological feat of SpaceShipOne resulted in the Virgin Group licensing that technology to build five space ships and two White Knight carrier crafts and has given birth to a commercially viable space tourism industry for the future. Using the latest technology in hybrid rocket motors and next generation turbo fan engines SS2 and WK2 will be environmentally benign.”

Now for the Judges:

Once you know Richard you understand why his company is called Virgin (and recognised as such throughout the world in numerous sectors). He is a pioneer of many famous world-wide business ventures – including Virgin Music Group and Virgin Atlantic (with a multitude of first-time achievements to boot); he is also the founder of a company that has been the saviour of Britain’s two most run-down rail-franchises as well as putting its considerable financial and personnel weight behind several worldwide charities facing some of the toughest challenges ever today. This incredibly revolutionary approach to life has also led to his involvement in many epic and famous world record-breaking sea, air and land ventures. In 2004 his dream of opening the world’s first ever commercial Space Tourism business was realised with the launch of Virgin Galactic. Richard Branson is a committed crusader and ambassador of crucial and urgent social as well as environmental issues – a fantastic proof of this was him being awarded a knighthood in the Queen’s Millennium New Year’s honours list for “Services to Entrepreneurship”.

Is known throughout the world as the Former Vice President of the USA. He is also (amongst others) Co-Founder of Generation Investment Management – a company committed to the new approach to Sustainable Investing. He is also an active and respected member of the Board of Directors for both Apple and Google. He is the author of “An Inconvenient Truth” – a best selling book and documentary about the history of the world. During the past 30 years he has been the leading advocate for confronting the threat of global warming.

An independent scientist for more than forty years as well as an Honorary Visiting Fellow of Green College, University of Oxford. He was elected to the Royal Society in 1974 and was made a Companion of Honour by Queen Elizabeth II in 2003. In addition, he has received ten international awards for his work as an environmentalist; these included the Blue Planet Prize, Volvo Prize and Wollaston Medal from the Geological Society in London.
James Lovelock’s most notable scientific work is the Gaia theory, now generally accepted under the name Earth System Science, and the discovery in l972 of the CFCs in the atmosphere and their subsequent global monitoring. He is the inventor of the electron capture detector (ECD), which first alerted us to the ubiquitous distribution of pesticides and PCBs. He has throughout his career as an environmental scientist supported nuclear energy as a preferred supplier of electricity. He is the author of five books and over 200 scientific papers.

Is an internationally acclaimed scientist, explorer, conservationist and author lauded by David Attenborough and Redmond O’Hanlon respectively as one of the world’s greatest explorers and having “… discovered more new species than Charles Darwin.” He is also Recipient of Centenary of Federation medal for his service to science and in 2002 became the first environmentalist to deliver the Australia Day address to the nation. His voice is familiar world-wide through radio and is also well-known to Documentary Channel viewers as writer/presenter on numerous ground-breaking series of the past 10 years. Tim was recently honoured as Australian Humanist of the Year as well as Australian of the Year.

Professor in Columbia University Earth Institute and also Heads the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in NYC. In addition, Dr Hansen’s research has contributed to incredible identification of the properties of clouds of Venus as sulfuric acid. He has worked on understanding the human impact on global climate for nearly 40 years and is universally famous for bringing world-wide awareness of the global warming issue in 1980’s.

Sir Crispin Tickell is the Director of the Policy Foresight Programme at the James Martin Institute for Science and Civilization at Oxford University. He is associated with other British universities as well as universities in the United States. His main interests are in the field of the environment and international affairs.
His interests as well as his unparalleled achievements in business, charities, climate and the Earth say all there is to say about this man and his imperative role in our ecological Earth group challenge.

Virgin Earth Challenge Guidelines

1. Purpose and overview
The purpose of the Virgin Earth Challenge is to encourage the development of commercially viable new technology, processes and methods to remove anthropogenic greenhouse gases from the atmosphere to improve the stability of the Earth’s climate.

Entrants must submit a commercially viable design (the “Design”) to achieve the net removal of significant volumes of anthropogenic, atmospheric greenhouse gases each year for at least 10 years without countervailing harmful effects (the “Removal Target”). The removal achieved by the Design must have long term benefits (measured over say 1,000 years) and must contribute materially to the stability of the Earth’s climate.

The prize fund will be awarded to (or shared amongst) any entrants whose Design (in the opinion of the judges) achieves or appears capable of achieving the Removal Target and other criteria set out in paragraph 7 and which in the opinion of the judges makes an outstanding contribution by way of innovation in the fields of engineering or the other physical technologies or in the application of the physical sciences, which is or will be for the benefit of the Earth’s climate.

Virgin invites all interested individuals or teams to complete an Entry Form to register to participate in the Virgin Earth Challenge. There’s an entry form HERE.

2. Guidelines and Participation Agreement

These Guidelines (and the Participation Agreement (see below)) form the basis of the rules that will govern the Virgin Earth Challenge. However, the Virgin Earth Challenge will be subject to more detailed rules, terms and conditions. The full rules, terms and conditions will be adopted within 60 days following the official launch of the Virgin Earth Challenge on 9 February 2007. Such full rules, terms and conditions will constitute a Participation Agreement to be signed by all registered entrants who wish to compete in the Virgin Earth Challenge.

3. Publicity

3.1
Virgin reserves the right to publish details of the entrants and/or winners of a cash award (“Winners”) and any Design(s) on the virgin.com website and in other promotional and publicity material as it considers appropriate, including (without limitation) for the purpose of promoting the Virgin group…

4. How to enter the Virgin Earth Challenge

4.1
In order to register to enter the Virgin Earth Challenge, each entrant must submit a completed copy of the Entry Form (signed by all members of the team)…

5. Submission of a Design

5.1
Only Designs received from registered entrants who have signed a Participation Agreement will be considered for entry into the Virgin Earth Challenge.

5.2
Entrants must submit each Design entry in writing by post or by hand…

5.3
The Virgin Earth Challenge is free to enter but each entrant shall bear the costs if any of researching, preparing and submitting his/her Design(s).

5.4
The number of Design entries per entrant is not limited.

5.5
The Design submission should be sufficiently detailed and clear to enable the judges to analyse properly and to form a view on all elements of the Design including the method and any possible side effects of exploitation of the Design.

6. Entries

6.1
Entries will not be returned.

6.2
By entering, each entrant confirms that the submitted Design is original, is the entrant’s own work, is not in breach of any obligation of confidence, is not in violation of any applicable laws, does not infringe any other third party rights of whatever nature and that the entrant has all rights and permissions necessary to submit the Design to the Virgin Earth Challenge and to exploit (or grant rights to exploit) the Design anywhere in the World. Each entrant hereby indemnifies Virgin and the judges against any and all loss, damages or liability which they might incur by reason of any breach or alleged breach of this paragraph or these Guidelines.

7. Criteria

7.1
Entries will be judged according to the following criteria:

(a) ability of the Design to achieve the Removal Target;

(b) technical viability;

(c) commercial viability;

(d) effectiveness and efficiency;

(e) scalability;

(f) harmful effects and/or other incidental consequences of the solution;

(g) other contributions to the reduction in environmental greenhouse gases;

(h) longevity of effects; and

(i) any other criteria which the judges decide in their discretion are relevant.

7.2
Entrants may be required to provide further information to assist the judges in assessing the Design and each entrant agrees to fully co-operate with the judges. Information which is not in the public domain and is marked by the entrant as confidential shall be treated as confidential by Virgin and the judges.

7.3
Any cash awards (“Awards”) will be awarded at the discretion of the judges. The decision of the judges shall be final and no correspondence will be entered into.

8. Judges

8.1
Judging of all submitted Designs will be conducted by a panel of judges comprising Sir Richard Branson, Sir Crispin Tickell, Al Gore, James Lovelock, Jim Hansen and Tim Flannery (provided that if any judge shall be unable to judge the entries, such judge(s) may be replaced by an alternate judge(s) selected by agreement of the remaining judges).

8.2
The judges reserve the right to take external advice and guidance from The Climate Group and/or such other experts as they consider appropriate.

9. Challenge duration

9.1
The Virgin Earth Challenge will open on 9 February 2007 (the “Opening Date”).

9.2
The Virgin Earth Challenge shall be open for an initial period of 3 years from the Opening Date and the deadline for submissions shall be 8 February 2010 (the “Closing Date”).

9.3
Within 180 days after the Closing Date, the judges shall judge the entries submitted by the Closing Date.

9.4
If the judges consider that the criteria have been met and that one or more entries should win some or all of the prize pool, Awards will be awarded and the Winners will be announced by Virgin in accordance with these Guidelines.

9.5
If some or all of the prize pool has not been awarded following judging of the submissions, the Virgin Earth Challenge shall re-open for a further period and the “Closing Date” shall be extended accordingly to 8 February 2011. The judges shall repeat the judging process in accordance with paragraphs 9.3 and 9.4….

10. The Award

10.1
The total prize pool is US$25million.

10.2
The judges may elect to award the entire prize pool funds to one Winner or to share the prize pool funds (as the judges think fit) between two or more Winners totalling US$25million in aggregate. The judges shall not be obliged to award all or any of the total prize pool funds if in the judges’ absolute discretion the criteria and Removal Target are not met.

10.3
The Winner(s) will receive 20% of his/her Award upon the judges’ decision to make the Award in respect of his/her Design (a “Winning Design”). The Winner(s) will receive the remaining 80% of his/her Award upon satisfactory achievement by his/her Design of the Removal Target for at least 10 consecutive years and provided all other criteria continue to be met at that time. (The intervening period between such payments shall be the “Post-Award Period”.) Accordingly, if there is a single Winner of the total prize pool fund that Winner would receive US$5 million upon the judges’ decision to make the Award and the remaining US$20 million following achievement of the Removal Target and other criteria for 10 years.

11. Award Winner announcement

11.1
Winners will be notified in writing to the address given in the Entry Form as soon as possible and in any event as soon as reasonably possibly following the expiry of 180 days following the relevant Closing Date.

12. Eligibility

12.1
The Virgin Earth Challenge is open to entrants resident in any nation anywhere on Earth, save for any nations the laws of which provide that entry in to the Virgin Earth Challenge is illegal. Designs may be submitted by any individual or individuals, independent team or teams or any team or teams working for a firm, company or other organisation of any nature.

http://www.virginearth.com/

So what’s up? What’s happening in response to the challenge? See these articles for a glimpse:

2nd Australian International Green Build & Renewable
Energy Exhibition and Conference

Friday 1 June – Sunday 3 June, 2007, Australian Technology Park, Sydney

International Green Build Renewable Energy Exhibition and Conference
info@grex.com.au

Conference – Topic Overview [one pertinent example]

OCEAN NOURISHMENT – A Climate Change Solution
John Ridley
Executive Director ONC

This Seminar will review – the need for carbon sequestration, The Ocean Nourishment technology, environmental and social benefits of Ocean Nourishment
Professor Jones and his Ocean Nourishment team’s technology mimics the natural process of macro-nutrient upwelling from deep ocean sites . This upwelling occurs naturally in about 70 per cent of the world’s oceans, which means the Ocean Nourishment process is potentially far more reaching than any other solution yet proposed. The technology is therefore capable of removing significant amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere via photosynthesis and storing carbon in plant matter which falls to the ocean floor..
The Ocean Nourishment team assembled to take part in Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Earth Challenge represents a “who’s who” of climate change, engineering, environmental and scientific expertise. The team aims to complete its submission to the Virgin Earth Challenge within the next year
Key members of the Ocean Nourishment team (and their respective contributions) include:
Professor Ian S F Jones (Champion)
Ocean Nourishment Corporation (Commercialisation)
Earth Ocean and Space (Inventors of Ocean Nourishment technology)
Ocean Technology Group, University of Sydney
Note: In response to intense media attention following the recent screening of the BBC2 documentary “Five Ways To Save The World”, Professor Ian S F Jones and Mr John Ridley provide more details on the Ocean Nourishment technology featured. A team led by Professor Jones will use this technology in its proposed entry in Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Earth Challenge. The Ocean Nourishment team welcomes enquiries from corporate sponsor organisations interested in becoming partners in the Challenge. The Challenge represents an opportunity to demonstrate leadership on the earth’s most challenging issue and to work in collaboration with leading thinkers on stabilisation of dangerous levels of climate change.

http://www.grex.com.au/conferencetopic.shtml

And from the Miami Independent Media Center :

GLOBAL WARMING SOULTION: Will it make it through the bureaucracy to the upper atmosphere?

by Peter Graves-Goodman Apr. 13, 2007

My friend Joe Fox, who is a molecular microbiologist, invented a modality to absorb CO2 in the atmosphere and reverse the global warming problem in days.

He is submitting his plan to www.VirginEarth.com. The Virgin Earth Challenge (Richard Branson-Al Gore) is a prize of $25m for whoever can demonstrate to the judges’ satisfaction a commercially viable design which results in the removal of anthropogenic, atmospheric greenhouse gases so as to contribute materially to the stability of Earth’s climate. The only problem is that it will be 3 years before they look at all the plans and judge who will receive the prize money.

greenhouse_warming.jpg, image/jpeg, 342×250

Here is Joe Fox’s solution to the global warming process:

Using a cloud seeding bacteria that eats CO2, it grows to a tremendous cloud in hours, then so full of carbon fibers inside unexcreted and heavily fattened, the bacteria will drop dead to the ground in about a day of gluttony eating CO2 to make carbon fibers inside itself unexcreted and releasing O2, like plants, taking the CO2 out of the atmosphere and dropping it to the ground, leaving a clean atmosphere behind, in about a day, since bacteria grows, like, well, bacteria, to a huge cloud in 2 to 4 hours.

The gene to do these functions is already commercially available from cDNA suppliers like INVITROGEN, INCITE, GENOMICS, CELERA, and others extracted from plant cells that make bark by absorbing CO2 from the air, then making carbon fibers with it and releasing Oxygen. This is a well known safe gene you eat every day in salads or fruits, that plants have and that can be inserted into bacteria. Another gene to be inserted into the bacteria, chlorophyll, etc., would be used to allow bacteria to absorb UV and heat energy, to also cool the planet, and to power the bacteria to eat much more CO2, much faster with this energy.

The bacteria I am proposing, is a perfectly safe, simple, readily available in the supermarket and even nutritious bacteria: Lactobacillus Acidophilus, (Yogurt), which is perfectly compatible with humans and animals, since it is a prehistoric bacteria, which all species have inside their guts, skin, and bodies. It has lived on this planet for billions of years, so everyone is compatible with it and all its nutritious effects.

You can take a bath in yogurt and it would actually be good for your skin, as Acidophilus is a normal inhabitant of the skin and gut of humans, animals, fish and plans alike. And when our bacteria rains down dead from the sky, it would only look like yogurt/wood dust. The CO2 would have been FIXED into carbon fibers inside the bacteria (the carbon part) and Oxygen released to the atmosphere. And the bacteria will be short lived due to the fact that the carbon fibers would eventually kill the bacteria of too much carbon fiber, eliminating the bacteria after its job is done (one gene for many functions).

This is the most elegant modality of removing tons and tons of CO2 in HOURS, (NOT DECADES) from the atmosphere, since bacteria grows in hours, not months or years like plants.

I have proposed a test of my bacteria, using a clear 5 gallon water bottle tank filled with air and CO2 pumped into the tank and then spray some bacteria in the tank and watch as the CO2 gauge drop rapidly to zero.

So, here is a Global Warming Solution. Will it make it through the bureaucracy to the upper atmosphere? http://miami.indymedia.org/news/2007/04/8108.php

And from Scientific American:

Special Report: Inspired by Ancient Amazonians, a Plan to Convert Trash into Environmental Treasure

New bill in U.S. Senate will advocate adoption of “agrichar” method that could lessen our dependence on fossil fuel and help avert global warming

By Anne Casselman , May 15, 2007

CHARCOAL like that created by ancient Amazonians or in a modern process called pyrolysis, could be used as a carbon-negative source of fuel and fertilizer.

When Desmond Radlein heard about Richard Branson and Al Gore’s Virgin Earth Challenge, a contest in which the first person who can sequester one billion tons of carbon dioxide a year wins $25 million, he got out his pencil and began figuring whether or not his company was up to the task.

Radlein is on the board of directors at Dynamotive Energy Systems, an energy solutions provider based in Vancouver, British Columbia, that is one of several companies pioneering the use of pyrolysis, a process in which biomass is burned at a high temperature in the absence of oxygen. The process yields both a charcoal by-product that can be used as a fertilizer, and bio-oil, which is a mix of oxygenated hydrocarbons that can be used to generate heat or electricity.

Because the charcoal by-product, or “agrichar,” does not readily break down, it could sequester for thousands of years nearly all the carbon it contains, rather than releasing it into the atmosphere as the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide. Along the way, it would boost agricultural productivity through its ability to retain nutrients and moisture.

“I developed this rough back-of-the-envelope calculation of what it would require if one were to [attempt the Virgin Earth Challenge] with the agrichar concept,” Radlein explains. “One would need about 7,000 plants each processing 500 tons of biomass per day, which is a large number, but it’s not outside the bounds of possibility.” Such facilities would produce four parts bio-oil to one part carbon sequestered, so it would rake in money as well as carbon.

An International Movement
Radlein is not alone in his belief in this technology—last week in Terrigal, New South Wales, Australia, the newly formed International Agrichar Initiative held its first ever conference, which included 135 attendees from every corner of the globe. According to Debbie Reed, an environmental policy expert who organized the conference, keynote speaker Mike Mason of the carbon offset company Climate Care urged attendees to unify in an effort to apply for the Virgin Earth Challenge. He also encouraged them to submit their method to the United Nations’s Clean Development Mechanism program, which is designed to transfer clean technology from the developed to the developing world.

Although no officials from the U.S. government attended the conference, there is a nascent stateside movement pushing for adoption of agrichar. “[Democratic Senator] Ken Salazar of Colorado is drafting a stand-alone bill on this, and he may also promote it as part of the Farm Bill,” notes Reed. The Farm Bill, whose terms are decided every year, determines what agricultural initiatives can be funded by the U.S. government. Inclusion in the Farm Bill would virtually guarantee subsidies for research and application of the agrichar process.

A Technology with a (Potentially) Huge Upside
In 2100, if pyrolysis met the entire projected demand for renewable fuels, the process would sequester enough carbon (9.5 billion tons a year) to offset current fossil fuel emissions, which stand at 5.4 billion tons a year, and then some. “Even if only a third of the bioenergy in 2100 uses pyrolysis, we still would make a huge splash with this technology,” remarks Johannes Lehmann, a soil biogeochemist at Cornell University and one of the organizers of the agrichar conference.

There are other perks: Increasing production of bio-oil could decrease a country’s dependence on foreign oil. In the tropics, boosting soil productivity increases the number of growing seasons per year, which could help alleviate the pressure to deforest biodiversity hot spots. The new markets for agricultural crops, which would in effect become sources of fuel, could boost rural economies worldwide, just as the demand for ethanol has bolstered the price of corn.

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=5670236C-E7F2-99DF-3E2163B9FB144E40

Critics have judged Branson harshly for his gas-guzzling airlines and space rockets:

Branson defends space trips at eco-prize launch

By Steve Connor, Science Editor
Saturday, 10 February 2007

Sir Richard Branson yesterday defended his plans to offer £100,000 trips into space while at the same time setting up a £12.8m prize for scientists to devise a way of absorbing carbon dioxide released in the atmosphere.

He was speaking at the launch of the Virgin Earth Challenge, which offers a $25m reward for the invention that most successfully removes significant quantities of carbon dioxide over a period of 10 years without harming the environment.

Sir Richard was asked how he could justify such a prize when he owns an airline and has set up a separate space tourism company. “Let’s confront the airline question,” he said. “I have an airline. I can afford to ground that airline today. My family have got businesses in mobile phones and other businesses, but if we do ground that airline today, British Airways will just take up the space. So what we are doing is making sure we acquire the most carbon dioxide-friendly planes. We’re making sure that 100 per cent of profits we make from our transportation businesses are put back into things like the prize.”

Virgin Galactic, his space-tourism company, will use hybrid rocket motors and turbo-fan engines that will be “almost” environmentally benign, he said, and the cost of a space ride could come down to the price of an economy-class ticket.

Flanked by Al Gore, the former American vice president, he said he was offering the biggest scientific prize in history to stimulate interest in the technology of capturing and storing millions of tonnes of man-made carbon dioxide, the principal greenhouse gas…. He said he had no idea whether the prize would ever be won but that unless we could devise a way of curbing carbon dioxide levels we faced a major extinction of life.

“We will lose half of all species on Earth, including the polar bear and the walrus, we will lose the coral reefs, including the Great Barrier Reef, 100 million people will be displaced due to rising sea levels, farmlands will become deserts, rainforests wastelands,” Sir Richard said.

Mr Gore said the prize should not deflect from other attempts at curbing emissions. “It should not be seen as a substitute for, or distraction from, the main aim, which is to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide ,” Mr Gore said. “We are now facing a planetary emergency and things that would not have been considered in the past ought now to be considered.”

Tony Juniper, director of Friends of the Earth, welcomed the initiative but warned that more should be done to encourage more environmentally friendly forms of travel. “Many of the ways of tackling climate change, such as energy efficiency and renewables, already exist, and it is essential that these are implemented as soon as possible. We cannot afford to wait for futuristic solutions which may never materialise,” Mr Juniper said.

“Sir Richard must also look at his business activities and the contribution they make to climate change. The world will find it very difficult to tackle climate change if air travel continues to expand and space tourism is developed,” he added.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/branson-defends-space-trips-at-ecoprize-launch-435792.html

Here is his response:

PREACHING GREEN WITH THE ZEAL OF A CONVERT

By Eugenia Levenson, March 16, 2007

The Virgin king is set on saving the planet. Since the fall, Branson has pledged profits from his gas-guzzling airline businesses to alternative-fuels research and launched an eco-equivalent of the X Prize. His Virgin Earth Challenge, announced in February, offers a $25 million reward for a winning plan to remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. (For other business responses, see our “Green Is Good” package.) On a recent visit to the UN to promote another worthy cause, blindness-prevention charity ORBIS, Branson spoke to FORTUNE’s Eugenia Levenson about his new crusade.

Who or what turned you green?

The Muppets!

So you wanted to prove Kermit wrong–that it is easy to be green?

Well, I read a lot of books, including Tim Flannery’s The Weather Makers and James Lovelock’s Gaia. I also met Al Gore, Ted Turner, and other people who were passionate about it. In the end, I realized the world has a serious problem, and if we carry on putting too much carbon and methane into the earth’s atmosphere, we’re going to snuff out the people and all the world’s species.

Gore is a judge for the Virgin Earth Challenge. How did you meet the former U.S. veep?

He came to my house a year and a half ago and said, “I want to spend two hours and try to convince you to tackle this problem.” By the end of those two hours, he’d got me thinking. A few months later I came up with the idea that since we had a dirty business in our airlines, if we put all our profits toward tackling global warming, it would be a good signal.

But Virgin Atlantic planes are still flying and producing emissions. Why not quit a dirty business altogether?

What we need to do is get our own house in order and reduce our carbon output. We’re experimenting with towing planes to and from runways rather than turning on engines before pushback, and we’re trying to buy lighter, more fuel-efficient planes. If we pull out, someone else will step in. Instead, we decided to reinvest all profits from our transportation businesses into trying to discover clean fuels.

The Earth Challenge is initially open for three years. Have you had any entries yet?

We’ve had over 15,000 submissions in the first month, so we’re wading through them at the moment. There’s one or two that the judges are [happy] about. They’re complicated but could be quite exciting.

You now own two private islands in the British Virgin Islands, and you’ve said they’ll be carbon neutral. How does that work?

We’ll have windmills for wind energy and solar [panels] for solar energy as well as for when the wind’s not blowing. We may have a little bit of wave power as well. No petrol on the islands is the plan. Hopefully we’ll get there.

From the April 2, 2007 issue, Fortune

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2007/04/02/8403412/index.htm

From the Virgin Blue:

Our Inflight Magazine

From a student paper to one of the world’s ‘mega-brands’ and a foray into space, Sir Richard Branson has seen it all. And he’s still got time to save the world, writes Catherine McCormack.

Richard Banson’s can-do attitude, sharp business acumen and grand spirit of adventure have paved his successes in life. From the fledgling record mail-order business run from the basement of the London flat he lived in as a 16-year-old, he has transformed Virgin into a global empire with 350 individual companies, 45,000 employees and an annual profit of around US$250 million (A$290 million).

Now the 57-year-old billionaire ‘multipreneur’ can add passionate environmentalist to the list. And, possibly very soon, astronaut.

In the past two years, Virgin has announced three new ventures: Virgin Fuels, a company dedicated to developing environmentally-sound fuel; the Virgin Earth Challenge, a US$25 million (A$29 million) prize for the individual or team who develops technology to remove large amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere; and Virgin Galactic, a space tourism operator that sends paying customers on a round-trip into outer space.

That these companies and the causes they represent are groundbreaking shouldn’t come as any great surprise. In his 41-year career, Branson has launched everything from Virgin Blue to Virgin Brides, breaking every ‘rule’ of business along the way. He’s thrived on doing the unpredictable, and often achieved the unthinkable.

Yet fame and money are no longer what drive Branson. They’re an incentive, sure, but the grand prize no more. The Englishman’s real passions are to challenge people’s perceptions and make a positive difference to the world, particularly when it comes to the causes he champions, such as world poverty, health and global warming.

Heralding a move away from fossil fuels seems an odd choice for a man whose billion-dollar transport enterprises rely on the stuff. But Branson, who was once described as “capitalistic in business but socially communist”, isn’t at all afraid to put his money, or his business reputation, where his conscience is.

“I’ve always said that I want to build the most respected brand in the world,” Branson said in an interview with Forbes magazine. “If we can send people into space in an environmentally friendly spacecraft that will help enhance our brand. [And] if we can invent an alternative fuel that tackles global warming and can one day be used in airplanes that will enhance our brand and tackle global warming – and enable me to sleep better at night.”

It was former US Vice President and star of the Oscar-winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore, who made Branson see how important he could be in global efforts to save the world.

“I was sceptical [about global warming],” Branson said during an interview on US TV show Good Morning America. “But I’ve met a lot of scientists. I’ve read a lot of books. I’ve had Al Gore spend two hours at my home giving me his personal time to convince me and, sadly, I’m now convinced the world has a serious problem.”

Shortly after the two men met, Branson announced, at a Global Initiative organised by former US President Bill Clinton in September 2006, that all of his profits from all of Virgin’s transport companies – including its five airlines – would be invested in developing clean energy sources that do not contribute to global warming. Profits are estimated to be US$3 billion (A$3.5 billion) over the next 10 years.

“Richard’s commitment is groundbreaking not only because of the price tag – which is phenomenal – but also because of the statement that he is making: Clean energy is good for the world, and it’s good for business,” commented Clinton.

Also in September, Branson launched Virgin Fuels, a company which will invest up to US$400 million (A$465 million) over a three-year period to develop earth-friendly biofuels. “It’s a commitment to try and find alternative fuels – for planes, for cars, for all forms of transport – and ultimately, obviously, to take on the oil companies,” he said.

In February this year, the business mogul again teamed up with Gore to launch the Virgin Earth Challenge Prize, a US$25 million (A$29 million) bounty to the individual or team who come up with a commercially viable way to suck massive amounts of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. Among the Challenge’s judges is acclaimed scientist, explorer, conservationist and the 2007 Australian of the Year, Tim Flannery.

“Sir Richard Branson is the rare individual who captures and commands attention, and he has the guts to do something bold,” said Gore. “And a lot of people are going to follow his lead.”

http://www.virginblue.com.au/products/voyeur/aug07/index.php?section=Venturing%20into%20Virgin%20territory

And some news on Branson’s environmental investments:

Virgin’s Branson Invests in Cilion

September 11, 2006

Richard Branson invested more than $60 million into Cilion recently, a company that will make bioethanol from corn. Cilion raised a total of $160 million earlier this month.

In total, Virgin Fuels, the subsidiary used for the investment, is investing $400 million in several biofuel companies, The Sunday Times reports (via Free Republic). Virgin Fuels is already working with UK’s government to make it economic for train companies to use biodiesel. Branson is understood to be considering other big investments in a range of other alternative-energy technologies, including wind power, hydro-electric and possibly even small nuclear stations.

Cilion is expected to start work on the first of seven bioethanol plants within a few weeks.

http://www.environmentalleader.com/2006/09/11/virgins-branson-invests-in-cilion/

AND

Branson Commits $3B to Renewable Energy

September 21, 2006

Virgin Group founder Richard Branson will spend three billion dollars in the next 10 years on a variety of projects to combat global warming and reduce dependence on fossil fuels. The announcement was made at the Clinton Global Initiative in New York, Yahoo News reports.

Branson said Virgin Group will invest all future profits from its airline and train businesses into renewable energy initiatives within the company and in other investments in new biofuel research and other projects to tackle emissions related to global warming. Virgin currently estimates this commitment to be three billion dollars over the next 10 years.

Virgin said the initiative would take the form of investment in new fuel technologies through an investment unit called Virgin Fuels, for which Branson’s group has pledged 400 million dollars in the next three years.

The first investment is in Cilion, which was announced earlier this month.

http://www.environmentalleader.com/2006/09/21/branson-commits-3b-to-renewable-energy/

AND

Branson: Airlines Can Cut CO2 Emissions 25% in 2 Years

December 14, 2006

Even though high fuel prices have cost the Virgin Group and Virgin Atlantic about a billion dollars a year in increased costs because of its trains and planes, Richard Branson prays that fuel prices remain high in order to stir people to take action to address global warming, Grist reports (via MSNBC).

Branson said the airline industry can reduce its CO2 emissions by about 25 percent over the next two years. Branson said he has started towards that goal by towing planes to the runway with an electric tug instead of taxiing planes.

Branson also said that he supports some type of a carbon tax for airlines. “Anything like that that cuts down greenhouse gases I support.”

Earlier this week, Virgin Atlantic pulled out of the UK government’s carbon emission reduction scheme after the air passenger duty was doubled.

Branson said that if there’s an adequate train service covering short-haul routes, people should be going by train, which produces about eight times less CO2 than planes.

“I think it should be government mandated,” Branson said.

In September, Branson announced that Virgin Group will spend three billion dollars in the next 10 years on a variety of projects to combat global warming and reduce dependence on fossil fuels. That announcement followed his investing more than $60 million into Cilion, a company that makes bioethanol from corn.

http://www.environmentalleader.com/2006/12/14/branson-airlines-can-cut-co2-emissions-25-in-2-years/

AND

Virgin Group, NTR Form Virgin Bioverda

January 17, 2007

Richard Branson’s Virgin Group and NTR have formed a joint venture company, VBV LLC (Virgin Bioverda), that will focus on U.S.-based ethanol. VBV’s first deal is an investment in two 100 million gallon corn to ethanol plants – Indiana Bioenergy in Indiana and Ethanol Grain Processors in Tennessee. The total capital investment in these projects will be in the region of $336 million.

Construction of both plants is to be carried out by Fagen, Inc. and is expected to be completed in 2008. VBV says it is has already identified a number of additional projects for development in 2007/08, and the company intends to look for additional biofuel opportunities in both North America and Europe.

“This is our second venture in the biofuel market in the U.S. since Virgin Fuels formed under the management of Shai Weiss,” said Richard Branson, Founder of Virgin Group.

Richard Branson has pledged to invest up to $3 billion over the next 10 years to combat global warming. In September, Branson invested more than $60 million into, a company that will make bioethanol from corn. The new investments bring Virgin’s total financial commitment to the renewable energy sector to $150 million in the last twelve months.

NTR’s recently announced corporate strategy is to invest up to $3 billion in renewable energy over the next five years.

http://www.environmentalleader.com/2007/01/17/virgin-group-ntr-form-virgin-bioverda/

AND

Virgin To Avoid Buying 4 Engine Planes For Environmental Reasons

September 4, 2007

Richard Branson says Virgin Atlantic will aim to avoid buying four-engined airplanes in future for both economic and environmental reasons, Reuters reports. Virgin Atlantic’s fleet of 38 planes all have four engines, and it has six four-engined Airbus A380 superjumbos on order.

But in April the airline announced it was buying 15 of Boeing’s new fuel-efficient 787 Dreamliner jets with 2 engines.

Virgin is developing biofuels for aircraft alongside Boeing and engine-maker GE Aviation and plans to test them next year.

http://www.environmentalleader.com/2007/09/04/virgin-to-avoid-buying-4-engine-planes-for-environmental-reasons/

Related Stories

Boeing and Virgin Announce Environmental Partnership

Virgin Unveils Fuel-Saving Plan

Virgin To Test 747 On Biofuel

Branson: Airlines Can Cut CO2 Emissions 25% in 2 Years

Virgin Launches New Green Fund

Welcome

Virgin Green Fund has been established to invest in companies in the renewable energy and resource efficiency sectors in the US and Europe. We are a sector-focused, multi-stage investment firm investing primarily in expansion/growth capital opportunities with an allocation to earlier stage venture capital opportunities. We are committed to helping companies at an inflection point of substantial growth and/or disruptive innovation. Diversification is a cornerstone of our strategy, investing across stage, geography and technology in our core sectors

Virgin Green Fund is uniquely positioned to access attractive investment opportunities, and help portfolio companies maximise value:

• Our experienced investment team has a demonstrated track record in helping companies to build, shape and accelerate growth
• Our strong business relationship network and strategic vision help us attract valuable partners to propel our portfolio companies towards value creation
• Our deep insight on market evolution helps us form a unique position on the risk/return profile of investment opportunities across multiple stages
• Our brand awareness and affiliation with Sir Richard Branson create unparalleled deal flow and recognition

Investment Approach

At Virgin Green Fund, we seek out opportunities to partner with superior management teams and established businesses seeking to raise expansion or growth capital. In addition, we evaluate disruptive technologies in our core sectors. Our portfolio companies match our investment charter.

Our investments span across stage, geography and technology in renewable energy and resource efficiency sectors.

We work alongside a number of leading investors on many of our investments.We partner with our portfolio companies as an active lead investor, leveraging our expertise and network, our experience in building great businesses, and our strong relationships with corporations, governments, academic institutions and NGOs.

Our Investment Charter:

• Invest in companies whose products and services reduce net greenhouse gas emissions and/or improve management of scarce resources, operate in environmentally and economically sustainable markets, and have a long-term positive impact on their communities and society more broadly
• Conduct business with our partners in a way that is open, collaborative, based on trust and equitable

http://www.virgin-fuels.net/

http://www.virgingreenfund.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=29&Itemid=35

And for ye of little faith:

VIRGIN ATLANTIC 747 TO TEST BIOFUEL IN EARLY 2008

BOSTON – British billionaire Richard Branson said on Monday his Virgin Group hopes to produce clean biofuels by around the start of the next decade and early next year will test a jet plane on renewable fuel.

Virgin hopes to provide clean fuel for buses, trains and cars within three or four years, Branson told a Mortgage Bankers Association meeting in Boston.

In the meantime, Virgin will be conducting a test jet flight on renewable fuels. “Early next year we will fly one of our 747s without passengers with one of the fuels that we have developed,” Branson told the annual conference.

Virgin is developing biofuels for aircraft in conjunction with Boeing Co and engine-maker GE Aviation, a unit of General Electric Co. Previously, Branson had said the company would test the fuel sometime next year and that some people had said it would be late in the year.

Air New Zealand has said it plans to test a flight on a combination fuel of biofuel and kerosene in late 2008, but Virgin is trying to beat that airline by testing biofuels first.

Branson pledged last year to spend all the profit over the next 10 years from his 51 percent stake in Virgin’s airline and rail businesses on fighting global warming.

He also created Virgin Fuels, which is investing US$400 million over three years in renewable energy initiatives, as part of the pledge.

Biofuels, at this point mostly ethanol and biodiesel, have witnessed explosive growth this year amid record oil prices and concern about global warming. They are believed to emit less greenhouse gases because they are made from plants like corn and soybeans that absorb carbon dioxide, the main heat-trapping gas, when they grow.

Cutting emissions of heat-trapping gases from transportation sources is more difficult than cutting them from stationary sources like power plants. Power stations can switch from coal, the heaviest greenhouse gas emitter, to cleaner burning natural gas.

On Monday, Branson said jets may have problems using ethanol, the most common biofuel, which is made mainly from corn in the United States and sugar cane in Brazil.

He said ethanol freezes at 15,000 feet (4,600 meters) and that butanol, a fuel similar to gasoline that can be made from biomass, may be a better alternative. It is also less corrosive than ethanol.

Virgin Fuels has invested in a small number of US ethanol projects and hopes eventually to produce branded biofuels, the company’s managing partner said earlier this year.

Separately, Branson said Virgin would name one of its Galactic crafts — planned for use in space tourism — after his friend Steve Fossett, the millionaire adventurer who disappeared in a small private plane in the US West early last month.

Test flights of the Galactic crafts begin next year and passenger service is expected to begin in 2009.

Story by Al Yoon

http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/44849/story.htm

So, are you are believer yet?

What is time travel. How is it possible, or is it? These are the questions addressed in this collection of writings, web sites, book, and video.

“Time is of your own making;
its clock ticks in your head.
The moment you stop thought
time too stops dead.”
by Angelus Silesius, a sixth-century philosopher and poet

A number of physicists are exploring the idea of time travel, and determining that it IS possible:

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa004&articleID=0000AB94-4016-1FBE-80168\
3414B7F0000
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/time/
http://www.lifesci.sussex.ac.uk/home/John_Gribbin/timetrav.htm
http://freespace.virgin.net/steve.preston/Time.html

Check out the American Institute of Physics and search “time travel”:
http://www.aip.org/pnu/1998/split/pnu365-1.htm
http://www.aip.org/pnu/2003/split/631-2.html

Stanford’s Encyclopedia of Philosophy, which contains some great responses to arguments against time travel. http://setis.library.usyd.edu.au/stanford/archives/fall2001/entries/time-travel-\
phys/

K.S. Thorne, Do the laws of physics permit wormholes for interstellar travel and machines for time travel? in Carl Sagan’s Universe , eds. Y. Terzian and E. Bilsen (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, England, 1997), Chapter 10, pp. 121-134.
Kip Thorne:

“[A]n American theoretical physicist, known for his prolific contributions in gravitation physics and astrophysics and for having trained a generation of scientists. A longtime friend and colleague of Stephen Hawking and Carl Sagan, he is the current Feynman Professor of Theoretical Physics at Caltech and one of the world’s leading experts on the astrophysical implications of Einstein’s general theory of relativity.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kip_Thorne
http://www.its.caltech.edu/~kip/

and his book:
K.S. Thorne, Spacetime Warps and the Quantum World: A Glimpse of the Future, in R.H. Price, ed., The Future of Spacetime (W.W. Norton, New York, 2002).

AND, for those of you who don’t like to bother with URLS, some excerpts:

“Despite years of debate, scientists still haven’t completely ruled out the possibility of going back in time. “Many physicists have a gut feeling that time travel to the past is not possible,” said Columbia University theoretical physicist Brian Greene. “But many of us, including me, are impressed that nobody’s been able to prove that.”

“Over the next few years, some experiments hold out a chance of finally being able to show whether or not time can move backward as well as forward. Theoretically, at least, it might be possible for the future to influence the past, said John Cramer, a physicist at the University of Washington. He and his colleagues plan to try just such an experiment next year.
Cramer acknowledged that the concept of retro-causality doesn’t seem to make sense, “but I don’t understand why not.”

Both Greene and Cramer know the science as well as the fiction side of the time-travel issue: Greene is the author of The Elegant Universe, a best-selling book on string theory — but he also played a cameo role in “Frequency,” a time-travel movie released in 2000, and served as a scientific consultant for “Deja Vu.”…

Cramer, meanwhile, has done research into ultra-relavistic heavy-ion physics at CERN and Brookhaven National Laboratory — but he’s also written two science-fiction novels and pens a regular column for Analog magazine called The Alternate View. If his experiments show that retro-causality is a reality — that one event can determine the outcome of another event taking place 50 microseconds earlier — it could lend support to the ultimate alternate view of quantum physics.

“It opens the door to doing all kinds of really bizarre things,” he said.”

“Nature would conspire against changing causality, something Cambridge physicist Stephen Hawking has called the “chronology protection conjecture”: For example, if you tried to shoot your father before you were born, somehow the gun would fail to go off.” http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15817394/

OR try Hawking:

“However, in a remarkable paper written in 1905, when he was a clerk in the Swiss patent office, Einstein showed that the time and position at which one thought an event occurred, depended on how one was moving. This meant that time and space, were inextricably bound up with each other. The times that different observers would assign to events would agree if the observers were not moving relative to each other. But they would disagree more, the faster their relative speed.
So one can ask, how fast does one need to go, in order that the time for one observer, should go backwards relative to the time of another observer.

The answer is given in the following Limerick.

There was a young lady of Wight,
Who traveled much faster than light,
She departed one day,
In a relative way,
And arrived on the previous night.

(…lots of physics…)

“But this subject of space and time warps is still in its infancy. According to string theory, which is our best hope of uniting General Relativity and Quantum Theory, into a Theory of Everything, space-time ought to have ten dimensions, not just the four that we experience. The idea is that six of these ten dimensions are curled up into a space so small, that we don’t notice them. On the other hand, the remaining four directions are fairly flat, and are what we call space-time. If this picture is correct, it might be possible to arrange that the four flat directions got mixed up with the six highly curved or warped directions. What this would give rise to, we don’t yet know. But it opens exciting possibilities.

The conclusion of this lecture is that rapid space-travel, or travel back in time, can’t be ruled out, according to our present understanding. They would cause great logical problems, so let’s hope there’s a Chronology Protection Law, to prevent people going back, and killing our parents. But science fiction fans need not lose heart. There’s hope in string theory.”

See the full lecture at:
http://www.hawking.org.uk/lectures/warps3.html

One of the arguments against time travel is mentioned by Hawking:

“One of these is, if sometime in the future, we learn to travel in time, why hasn’t someone come back from the future, to tell us how to do it.

Even if there were sound reasons for keeping us in ignorance, human nature being what it is, it is difficult to believe that someone wouldn’t show off, and tell us poor benighted peasants, the secret of time travel. Of course, some people would claim that we have been visited from the future. They would say that UFO’s come from the future, and that governments are engaged in a gigantic conspiracy to cover them up, and keep for themselves, the scientific knowledge that these visitors bring. All I can say is, that if governments were hiding something, they are doing a pretty poor job, of extracting useful information from the aliens.”

There are two views on time paradoxes. As Stephen Hawking says:

“A possible way to reconcile time travel, with the fact that we don’t seem to have had any visitors from the future, would be to say that it can occur only in the future. In this view, one would say space-time in our past was fixed, because we have observed it, and seen that it is not warped enough, to allow travel into the past. On the other hand, the future is open. So we might be able to warp it enough, to allow time travel. But because we can warp space-time only in the future, we wouldn’t be able to travel back to the present time, or earlier.

This picture would explain why we haven’t been over run by tourists from the future.

But it would still leave plenty of paradoxes. Suppose it were possible to go off in a rocket ship, and come back before you set off. What would stop you blowing up the rocket on its launch pad, or otherwise preventing you from setting out in the first place. There are other versions of this paradox, like going back, and killing your parents before you were born, but they are essentially equivalent. There seem to be two possible resolutions.” http://www.hawking.org.uk/lectures/warps3.html

One: the alternative universe, from John Gribbon’s page “Everything You Always Wanted to Know About…Time Travel“:

“According to one interpretation of quantum theory (and it has to be said that there are other interpretations), each of these parallel worlds is just as real as our own, and there is an alternative history for every possible outcome of every decision ever made. Alternative histories branch out from decision points, bifurcating endlessly like the branches and twigs of an infinite tree. Bizarre though it sounds, this idea is taken seriously by a handful of scientists (including David Deutsch, of the University of Oxford). And it certainly fixes all the time travel paradoxes.

On this picture, if you go back in time and prevent your own birth it doesn’t matter, because by that decision you create a new branch of reality, in which you were never born. When you go forward in time, you move up the new branch and find that you never did exist, in that reality; but since you were still born and built your time machine in the reality next door, there is no paradox.”

This branch of “research deals with both time, and relative dimensions in space. You could make a nice acronym for that — TARDIS, perhaps?” http://www.lifesci.sussex.ac.uk/home/John_Gribbin/timetrav.htm

The other explanation, in Stephen Hawking’s words is:

” One is what I shall call, the consistent histories approach. It says that one has to find a consistent solution of the equations of physics, even if space-time is so warped, that it is possible to travel into the past. On this view, you couldn’t set out on the rocket ship to travel into the past, unless you had already come back, and failed to blow up the launch pad. It is a consistent picture, but it would imply that we were completely determined: we couldn’t change our minds. So much for free will.” http://www.hawking.org.uk/lectures/warps3.html

Now for the good part – science fiction books!

Here are some books I found that mention time travel – not all are HardSF, but I think you can figure that out by the authors. The best description of time travel’s paradoxes and how they are figured out is in Connie Willis’ To Say Nothing of the Dog. It talks about history reweaving itself back around an event that was changed – so if you changed something in 1812, a change that would have had Bonaparte win the war, time would go backwards far enough and make changes so that the event you “changed” could not have happened – the inn where someone overheard a conversation you made about Wellington and is passed on to Napoleon, instead burns down before you could stop there, etc. It is fascinating. Another good one is Kay Kenyon’s Leap Point.

Here’s a list (URL below) + some additions of my own:

The Avatar by Poul Anderson
Tau Zero by Poul Anderson
The Corridors of Time by Poul Anderson
The End of Eternity by Isaac Asimov
Pebble in the Sky by Issac Asimov
In the Garden of Iden (The Company) by Kage Baker et al (series)
Manifold: Time by Stephen Baxter
The Time Ships by Stephen Baxter
The Fall of Chronopolis by Barrington J. Bayley
Looking Backward by Edward Bellamy (1888)
Timescape by Gregory Benford – “the best of the modern time travel novels, even though only subatomic tachyons do the traveling”
Kindred by Octavia Butler
Pastwatch by Orson Scott Card (series)
The Light of Other Days by Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter (“remote viewing” through a worm hole of other times)
Time’s Eye (A Time Odyssey) by Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter
Timeline by Michael Crichton
The Watch by Dennis Danvers
Time and Again by Jack Finney
1632 by Eric Flint
The Man Who Folded Himself by David Gerrold
The Accidental Time Machine by Joe Haldeman
The Door Into Summer by Robert Heinlein
The Proteus Operation by James Hogan
Leap Point by Kay Kenyon
Somewhere In Time by Richard Matheson (basis of the movie with Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour – not HardSF)
World Out of Time and Rainbow Mars by Larry Niven
The Time Traders by Andre Norton (read the original version)
Door Number Three by Patrick O’Leary
Century Rain by Alastair Reynolds
The Didymus Contingency: A Time Travel Thriller by Jeremy Robinson ( a thriller – not HardSF)
End of an Era by Robert Sawyer
Flashforward by Robert J. Sawyer
Up the Line by Robert Silverberg
Our Children’s Children by Clifford Simak
Ilium by Dan Simmons (and others)
Chronospace by Allen Steele
Island in the Sea of Time by S. M. Stirling
Bones of the Earth by Michael Swanwick
Gunpowder Empire by Harry Turtledove (1st in the Crosstime Traffic series)
The Time Machine by H.G. Wells
The Doomsday Book and To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis

Much of this list came from:
http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:cNR72MoK1e8J:www.vla.org/05Conf/Presentation\
s/Time%2520travel.doc+Hard+science+fiction+book+time+travel&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=6&g\
l=us
and myself Del.icio.us.ing and Amazon tagging.

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I also found:

The Best Time Travel Stories of the 20th Century: Stories by Arthur C. Clarke, Jack Finney, Joe Haldeman, Ursula K. Le Guin, by Harry Turtledove and Martin H. Greenberg

The Best Time Travel Stories of All Time by Barry N. Malzberg, Philip K. Dick, and Robert Silverberg

Travels Through Time (Science Fiction Shorts) by Isaac Asimov, Martin Harry Greenberg, Charles G. Waugh, and Thomas Leonard

Time Machines: The Greatest Time Travel Stories Ever Written by Bill Adler

Time Machines: Time Travel in Physics, Metaphysics, and Science Fiction by Paul J. Nahin and K.S. Thorne (Non-fiction)

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And some more NF references from Brian’s Views on Time Travel and Interdimensional Voyages: http://www.brianbosak.com/

References:

1) Bagnall, Phil , Where have all the time travelers gone? New Scientist July 6 1996, v151

2) Deutsch, David, & Lockwood, Michael , The quantum physics of time travel, Scientific American March 1994, v270

3) Parsons, Paul , A warped view of time travel, Science October 11 1996, v274

4) How to murder your grandfather and still get born, The Economist January 20 1996, v338

“This site was used by the TV show “NOVA” on PBS CH11 Chicago” (which I have a link to elsewhere).” http://www.brianbosak.com/

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Interestingly, according to the book I’m Working on That by William Shatner, in his chapter on time travel, he says that Hugo Gernsback, the SF editor of Amazing Stories, et al, first posed a question to his readers in 1929 about time travel and interaction between future visitors and the people of that time. He supposedly posed the grandfather paradox, and there is a direct quote from his “letter’ to the readers. This is in open opposition to Wikipedia’s article on it, which states that the first mention of it was René Barjavel in his 1943 book Le Voyageur Imprudent (The Imprudent Traveller): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grandfather_paradox

I highly recommend Shatner’s book (as I have before) for the science illiterate. It contains chapters on time travel, black holes, transporters, holodecks, and all those cool gadgets like communicators. And he went to the leading people in the field for the information. Like in the time travel one, he used Kip Thorne who holds the Feynmann Professor of Theoretical Physics at the California
Institute of Technology.

————————–

Also of interest would be: Time Travel: A Writer’s Guide to the Real Science of Plausible Time Travel (Science Fiction Writing Series) by Paul J. Nahin
http://www.amazon.com/Time-Travel-Writers-Science-Plausible/dp/0898797489/ref=pd\
_sim_b_img_2

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According to the link above (under the list of books), the author says: “The definitive book on time travel, its mathematical theory, its possibilities in modern Physics, and its literary exploration is

Time Machines: Time Travel in Physics, Metaphysics, and Science Fiction, by Paul Nahin [New York: American Institute of Physics, 1993].”

“Besides the definitive analysis by Paul Nahin, other worthwhile non-fiction sources (critical and scientific) include:

Origins of Futuristic Fiction by P. K. Alkon [Athens GA: University of Georgia, 1987]
New Maps of Hell by Kingsley Amis [New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1960]
When It Comes to Time Travel, There’s No Time Like the Present by Isaac Asimov [New York Times, 5 Oct 1986, Sec.2, pp.1&32]
Faster Than Light by Isaac Asimov [Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, Nov 1984]
Time Travel by Isaac Asimov [Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, Apr 1984]
Impossible, That’s All by Isaac Asimov, in “Science, Numbers and I [New York: Doubleday, 1968]
The Time Machine: an Ironic Myth by B. Bergonzi [Critical Quarterly 2, Winter 1960, pp.293-305]
Physics and Fantasy: Scientific Mysticism, Kurt Vonnegut, and Gravity’s Rainbow by Russell Blackford [Journal of Popular Culture 19, Winter 1985, pp.35-44]
Science Fiction: The Early Years by E. F. Bleiler [Kent OH: Kent State University Press, 1990]
“Time” special issue with many essays [Daedalus, Spring 2003]
Why Time Flows: the Physics of Past and Future by Thomas Gold [Daedalus, Spring 2003]“
http://www.magicdragon.com/UltimateSF/thisthat.html#time

See the same site for a list of Time Travel movies with reviews, etc.
http://www.magicdragon.com/UltimateSF/time.html,
which includes two of my favorites: Somewhere in Time, and A Sound Like Thunder, but forgets Butterfly Effect.

————————-

And from U of Mich’s “Science of Film Site: Promise of Time Travel”
(http://retrofuture.web.aol.com/timetravel.html) see:

Cannon, Damian. La Jetee, Movie Reviews UK. (12 Monkeys was based on this short film)
http://www.film.u-net.com/Movies/Reviews/Jetee.html

Lefcowitz, Eric. A Brief History of Time Travel, Retro Future. (6/14/99)

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And then there’s NOVA’s site on time travel:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/time/through.html

Here’s their list of web links AND non-fiction books, including Kip Thorne’s book (Kip Thorne was THE guy Shatner went to to help him with the section on Time Travel in I’m Working On That.

WEB SITES:

Web Links Time Travel
http://freespace.virgin.net/steve.preston/Time.html

This well-organized site, an excellent introduction to time travel, is designed for people with various levels of scientific knowledge. The site includes some of the mathematics that may support time travel as well as information on black-hole theory and the theory of relativity.

Virtual Trips to Black Holes and Neutron Stars http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/htmltest/rjn_bht.html

This site offers virtual trips via MPEG movies to neutron stars and black holes. Most movies are accompanied by a written description. The site also offers plenty of GIFs, a FAQ page, and links to other astronomy sites.

The Time Travel Research Center
http://www.time-travel.com

This intriguing site offers authoritative studies on the history and philosophy of time, the physics of time travel, and experiments in time travel. Gain access to the Tri Star System, the world’s largest
information database of science, technology, and research related to time travel, and shop for time-travel-related products in the on-line store.

Brian’s Views on Time Travel and Interdimensional Voyages
http://www.iit.edu/~bosabri/time.html

This page offers a paper that discusses the possibilities of time travel and covers the subjects of time dilation, wormholes, and the grandfather paradox.

The Theory Of Elementary Waves – Part 1
http://compbio.caltech.edu/~sjs/tew1.html

This site further develops the theory of time travel. It examines some of the basic principles of quantum physics, including the theory of elementary waves.

BOOKS:

Books Black Holes and Time Warps: Einstein’s Outrageous Legacy by Kip S. Thorne, Norton, 1994

In a book the Wall St. Journal called an “engrossing blend of theory, history, and anecdote,” Kip Thorne, the Feynmann Professor of Theoretical Physics at the California Institute of Technology,
discusses everything from black holes to wormholes, with the final chapter devoted to time travel. The book’s glossary is excerpted in Timespeak.

Time: A Traveler’s Guide by Clifford A. Pickover, Oxford University Press, 1998

Pickover, the lead writer for Discover Magazine’s brain-boggler column, eases the reader into the arcane theory behind time travel with amusing fictional narratives, in which two people in a Museum of Music in New York experiment with time. See Traveling Through Time for
an excerpt.

A Brief History of Time: The Illustrated, Updated, and Expanded Edition by Stephen Hawking, Bantam Books, 1996

Physics and the nature of time conveyed with the remarkable wit, clarity, and patience of the foremost theoretical physicist since Einstein. Illustrated with striking color imagery.

Time Machines: Time Travel in Physics, Metaphysics, and Science Fiction by Paul J. Nahin, Springer-Verlag New York, 1993

Paul Nahin doesn’t write like an engineering professor, but that’s what he is (at the University of New Hampshire). With often amusing references to novels, comics, and sci-fi films, Nahin takes on the daunting topic of time machines with erudition and flair.

Faster: The Acceleration of Just About Everything by James Gleick, Pantheon Books, 1999.

In his latest work, James Gleick explores our increasingly speed-driven world. He specifically investigates the newest paradox of time: as technology accelerates, offering more time-saving devices, the notion of haste only increases. From atomic clocks, to answering machines, to the bunkers of war, Gleick approaches the subject from diverse perspectives.

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A few quotes on time travel:

“I wouldn’t take a bet against the existence of time machines. My opponent might have seen the future and know the answer” – Stephen Hawking

“Time present and time past are both perhaps present in time future. And time future contained in time past.” – T.S. Elliot

and from one of my favorite poets:

I’ve decided to intersperse my long posts on books, movies, SciFi, etc., with some “shorter” or “odd” ones – a place to put my “junk” so to speak.  So here goes the first one:

On one of my book groups we’ve been discussing a post I found that showed the cost of building a space elevator vs. the Iraqi War.  The figure was 10% of the cost of the war.  What is a “space elevator you ask?  Here’s the basic concept:

“To build “an elevator to the stars,” you start building from a location on the Earth’s equator … rising vertically until you reach “geosynchronous orbit” — some 22,300 miles out.  Then, you send payloads up and down this structure via “climber cars” — which would be electrically powered and, on their ascent, being also accelerated by the increasing centrifugal forces of rotation of the planet with increasing height, would ultimately achieve tangential velocities above 22,300 miles capable of launching payloads directly into orbit (below) ….  

Or, as science fiction writer Robert Heinlein once remarked, “Once you’re in Earth orbit … you’re half way to anywhere!”

Compared to current, highly primitive methods of getting off this planet – expendable rockets, the Space Shuttle, etc., which can cost up to $10,000 per pound of payload launched! – Arthur Clarke once calculated that one could send a fully grown man to geosynchronous orbit (and his “22 pounds of carry-on luggage …”) via such an elevator, for about “a dollars’ worth of electricity …” — a saving of ten thousand fold over current rocket-based propulsion systems (not counting the ~ $10 billion-dollar development costs …)!”  http://www.enterprisemission.com/moon5.htm; see also: http://seattlewebcrafters.com/nsecc/?q=node/view/115. (National Space Society’s Space Elevator Special Interest Chapter) 

I thought it was a no-brainer, as some of the people on the group had expressed the idea that if we were ever going to make it into space, we needed to do it in “baby steps,”;  like in one of my favorite movies, “What about Bob?”  I use the term baby steps, as used in the movie, a lot – the character, Bill Murray, a patient of psychiatrist Richard Dreyfuss, was having some deep issues.  The movie focuses on what happened when the psychiatrist tries to go out of town on vacation, and Murray is left without his “crutch.”  But one of the tools the psych used was “baby steps.”  In order to overcome anything, you need to take small steps, not just leap over the hurdle.  It’s like “chunking,” as used in the reading process – taking words apart into “chunks” of sounds, and working on those, and then recombining them back into one word; or attacking what seems to be an insurmountable problem by breaking it down into manageable pieces.

So, back to my space elevator.  Some one had suggested taking small steps in the space race, like building a space elevator rather than working on FTL (faster than light – superluminal) travel (versus our current theoretical STL or subluminal methods of space travel).  Which would cost the least, have the fastest results, and show the most promise in terms of getting people excited about space again?

Many of us on the group think back to the early days of the space program – I was born the year Sputnik went up; a true child of the space age – and fondly recall the promise of those years and the enthusiasm of President Kennedy. 

In his historic speech to a joint session of congress on May 25, 1961, to lay out his proposal to “preserve freedom and protect the American way of life.”

“First, I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish. We propose to accelerate the development of the appropriate lunar space craft. We propose to develop alternate liquid and solid fuel boosters, much larger than any now being developed, until certain which is superior. We propose additional funds for other engine development and for unmanned explorations–explorations which are particularly important for one purpose which this nation will never overlook: the survival of the man who first makes this daring flight. But in a very real sense, it will not be one man going to the moon–if we make this judgment affirmatively, it will be an entire nation. For all of us must work to put him there.” http://www.space.com/news/jfk_speech_040114.html

Will the next president share that dream?  Or will it crumble under the weight of bureaucracy and lack of funding, and a cohesive, baby steps plan?  One look at NASA’s web site (http://www.nasa,gov) will disabuse you of that – they are working on small steps, not FTL.  Although they do have a few “public interest” projects, such as the latest one, beaming a Beatles’s song, “Across the Universe,” today, 2/4/08 at 7pm EST, to Polaris, reaching it in about 431 years.  Across the world, people are invited to play the song at the same time as NASA beams it out.  Response from the Beatles was enthusiastic: ”Amazing!  Well done, NASA!  Send my love to the aliens. All the best.” said Sir Paul McCartney, and Yoko Ono, John Lennon’s widow (who was the principle writer of the song) said: “I see that this is the beginning of the new age in which we will communicate with billions of planets across the universe.”   The song was beamed out to commemorate a number of anniversaries, including the 40th of the song’s recording, and the 50th anniversaries of NASA’s founding and the launch of the first satellite, Explorer I.

And are we, as a people committed to what, as outlined below, is an important part of that vision for the future of America? 

But back to the space elevator yet again.  In responses to the space elevator post, and my comment that it was a no brainer, several people replied that the public wouldn’t see it that way, that they didn’t care about space, or science even – some went so far as to predict the death of pure mathematics and any pure scientific research.  Pessimistic responses to my comment, from very educated, science minded people.  Are we all that ready to dismiss science and junk it?  IS that our priority?  We all have a list in our heads of those things we set our priorities on when it comes to government spending – education, military, welfare, health-care reform, social security, the environment, global warming, new energy sources, and space.  But many of these priorities, such as the environment and new energy sources, depend on science, mathematics and research.  I believe that most people fundamentally understand that, and are not ready to throw the baby out with the bath water, so to speak, even if they put space low on the list of priorities.

But think of it: would you rather spend $40-$50 billion dollars on something that could easily bring payloads to space without the cost of the space shuttles, and without presumably the danger, OR would you prefer to spend it on a futile war, another “Vietnam,” that would cost astronomical (pun intended) sums.  In a Washington Post article from 11/18/07: “A report released last week by the Democratic staff of Congress’s Joint Economic Committee put the war’s 2002-08 tab at $1.3 trillion.” The author also counts the “real” cost of the war: the dead (38,00 U.S. soldier), the number of bullets fired for every Iraqi insurgent killed (250,000 – a fairly poor accuracy rating – you’d never pass a law enforcement class with those numbers!), the fact that we still aren’t safe from terrorism and that “[t]he $1 trillion we’ve probably spent on the war could have funded the annual budget of the Department of Homeland Security 28 times over” and that ”governing Iraq has, so far, been a fruitless investment.According to 2006 figures, U.S. war spending came out to $3,749 per Iraqi — almost as much as the per capita income of Egypt. That staggering sum hasn’t bought a lot of leadership from Iraq, or much of a democratic model for its Arab neighbors.” http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/16/AR2007111600865.html

So, you can probably guess my stance on this issue – but when you break down, or “chunk” the war into baby steps or small figures that actually mean something to people, rather than a large amorphous sum of money – who really understands how much a trillion is worth?  In a New York Times Business article from 1/17/08,

“The way to come to grips with $1.2 trillion is to forget about the number itself and think instead about what you could buy with the money. When you do that, a trillion stops sounding anything like millions or billions.

The War has been estimated to cost around $1.2 trillion ($700 billion in direct military spending, the rest in related costs).  “In the days before the war almost five years ago, the Pentagon estimated that it would cost about $50 billion. Democratic staff members in Congress largely agreed. Lawrence Lindsey, a White House economic adviser, was a bit more realistic, predicting that the cost could go as high as $200 billion, but President Bush fired him in part for saying so.”

So, what can you do with $1.2 trillion dollars?

“For starters, $1.2 trillion would pay for an unprecedented public health campaign — a doubling of cancer research funding, treatment for every American whose diabetes or heart disease is now going unmanaged and a global immunization campaign to save millions of children’s lives.

Combined, the cost of running those programs for a decade wouldn’t use up even half our money pot. So we could then turn to poverty and education, starting with universal preschool for every 3- and 4-year-old child across the country. The city of New Orleans could also receive a huge increase in reconstruction funds.”  http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/17/business/17leonhardt.html

or:

The above chart is the initial estimate of the cost of the war v. preschool costs.  But with the actual estimated figure so much higher, we could have done so much more.  So for all those nay-sayers who say that space is a waste of time, let me point out to you a page that shows what NASA and their space explorations have done to improve our daily lives: 

“Breast biopsies – Mammographies are essential for the detection and treatment of breast cancer. As a result of technology developed through the Hubble Space Telescope program, biopsies can be performed with a needle instead of a scalpel.”

“Lifeshears – This powerful hand-held rescue tool can quickly cut through cars or other enclosures to free persons involved in an accident or other dangerous situation. The tool, which was developed through the joint efforts of the Hi-Shear Technology Corporation, firefighters and NASA, uses the same power source used to separate solid rocket boosters from Space Shuttles.”

“Linking the World’s Telephones – When friends and family call from other parts of the country or overseas, they sound as if they are right around the corner. The scope, clarity, and reliability of our long-distance telephone system is the result of communications satellite technology developed by NASA.”

“Vital Signs for Critical Moments – The monitoring systems used in intensive care units and heart rehabilitation wards were developed from  the systems used to monitor astronauts during the first space missions in the early 1960s.”

“Food Safety for Astronauts Sets the Standard – The Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Department of Agriculture credit NASA with developing the comprehensive food safety system, referred to as Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) that the nation uses today.”

“S.O.S. to Space Provides Global Rescue Capability – NASA’s research in developing and demonstrating pace-based beacon locators was used to create an international, satellite-based search and rescue system that has helped save almost 13,000 lives worldwide (as of January 2002).”

“New “Fields” and Better Yields for Agriculture – NASA-sponsored researchers working on methods to grow plants in space have produced world-record crops on Earth.”

“Big Functions in a Small Package – Micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS) are extremely small devices and sensors (comparable to the size of a human hair ) … [that] measure changes in speed of small objects or activity levels of people or animals. … MEMS technology is used now in consumer products to trigger automobile airbags, regulate pacemakers and even keep washers and dryers balanced.”

“Wildfire Management – Wildfires are a continual concern for communities in the western United States. NASA has worked with the U.S. Forest Service to develop a rapid-response capability for wildfires based on data broadcasts from NASA’s Terra and Aqua satellites.”

“NASA Develops Science Curricula with Educational Publisher – NASA and Pearson Education … develop new science curricula for 100 million elementary and middle school students. The new curricula will be designed to increase student interest in science, technology, engineering, mathematics and space exploration.”

“Cleaner Cars – Space flight research is changing our understanding of how and why things burn … A hydrogen experiment on board Columbia’s final mission produced the weakest flames ever created—100 times weaker than a birthday candle. This research could lead to cleaner-burning cars in the future by helping scientists improve the burning of hydrogen and other fuels in engines and furnaces.”

and perhaps, most valuable or all, as an inspiration:

“Inspiration and Innovation—A NASA Story – At NASA, extraordinary goals inspire exceptional minds. As a boy in Pakistan, Dr. Rafat Ansari was first inspired to pursue scientific research when he saw astronauts walk on the moon. This inspiration eventually led Dr. Ansari to become a researcher at NASA, where his work with fluid physics has produced an unexpected and valuable medical care innovation.”

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/nasalife/index.html; http://www.nasa.gov/externalflash/hits2_flash/index_noaccess.html (which can be also be accessed from the NASA Life link: go to the NASA Hits: Rewards from Space)

Judging from the large interest in my blogs that deal with SciFi books for adults and teens, and those on the Singularity, cyberpunk, etc., v. the lesser interest on those ones that deal with more mundane subjects, and even the political ones, I don’t think the public (perhaps this is more of a slice of the “educated” public?) is that ready to dismiss science, space and dreams.

Are you?

In some research I was doing I came across this bit of rather astounding recent (1/17/08) news:

Can Machines Issue Islamic Fatwas
http://aawsat.com/english/news.asp?section=7&id=11493

“He [Dr. Anwas Fawzi] describes the device [Asharq Al-Awsat] as “a very large capacity computer on which all the information that is relevant to a given [historical] figure is uploaded; everything that has been mentioned in history books or chronicled documents that indicate his/her responses and attitudes towards all positions adopted in his/her life. Through a process that relies on AI, the computer then simulates responses based on the available data so that the answers are the expected response that the person in question would give if they were alive,”

And a discussion of it at technovelgy (where science meets fiction – an interesting site):

“Electronic Mufti’ May Issue Machine Fatwas: http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/Science-Fiction-News.asp?NewsNum=1415

AND

I read about this in SF all the time – a favorite tech device of writers lately, but was sort of shocked to see it on Dvice (SciFi Channel’s science/tech news) and through Technovelgy – has the future arrived? New song: “And she’ll have fun, fun, fun, ’til her Daddy takes the lenses away”…

Here’s the Technovelgy article:
Circuit Contact Lens, Presaged By Niven, Barnes and Vinge:
http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/Science-Fiction-News.asp?NewsNum=1409

Here’s the University of Washington original story:
Contact lenses with circuits, lights a possible platform for superhuman
vision:
http://uwnews.washington.edu/ni/article.asp?articleID=39094

“Movie characters from the Terminator to the Bionic Womanuse bionic eyes to zoom in on far-off scenes, have useful facts pop into their field of view, or create virtual crosshairs. Off the screen, virtual displays have been proposed for more practical purposes — visual aids to help vision-impaired people, holographic driving control panels and even as a way to surf the Web on the go. The device to make this happen may be familiar. Engineers at the University of Washington have for the first time used manufacturing techniques at microscopic scales to combine a flexible, biologically safe contact lens with an imprinted electronic circuit and lights.“The UW engineers used microscopic scale manufacturing techniques to create a flexible, biologically safe contact lens with imprinted electronic circuits and lights. If used by human beings, a pair of contact lenses with circuits and lights would be the perfect display for augmented reality systems.
(Contact lens with circuits close-up)

‘Looking through a completed lens, you would see what the display is generating superimposed on the world outside,’ said Babak Parviz, a UW assistant professor of electrical engineering. ‘This is a very small step toward that goal, but I think it’s extremely promising.’”

Here’s the DVice article:
Bionic vision contact lenses being developed :
http://dvice.com/archives/2008/01/bionic_vision_c.php

And for what’s out there now, check out this headset that is a VR set, with mini screen that mimics a real computer screen in front of your eyes – sort of an early lens prototype: http://www.vrealities.com/poma.html

And 1984 may be late, but Big Brother is here! – see the following articles:

Australasian Intelligent Speed Adaptation Initiative – Big Road Brother – A way to make cars slow down after a warning is given, and even stop them.
http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/Science-Fiction-News.asp?NewsNum=1402

“The technology uses GPS and a database that identifies speed limits on all roads and operates on three levels.

Drivers get an audible warning they are over the limit at level one.

At level two, the device cuts power to the engine to prevent the driver from speeding, but the system can be adjusted or overridden.

At level three, the system cannot be switched off or adjusted and all speeding is cut.

The device could be fitted to repeat speeding offenders, or to all vehicles.” Big Brother speed control to be trialled: http://au.news.yahoo.com/080108/2/15gt9.html

And in a Terminator take – FBI Demands SkyNet, Uh, Server in the Sky: http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/Science-Fiction-News.asp?NewsNum=1405

“The FBI supports Server in the Sky, an international database of biometric data accessible by law enforcement officials in countries allied in the ‘war on terror.’

Although the database would be used to hunt criminals and terrorists, it would contain biometric information like iris scans, finger prints and facial images about ordinary citizens whose names have come up in criminal investigations. The FBI told the Guardian (a UK news organization):

‘Server in the Sky is an FBI initiative designed to foster the advanced search and exchange of biometric information on a global scale. While it is currently in the concept and design stages, once complete it will provide a technical forum for member nations to submit biometric search requests to other nations. It will maintain a core holding of the world’s ‘worst of the worst’ individuals. Any identifications of these people will be sent as a priority message to the requesting nation.’

Although the FBI proposes to establish three categories of suspects, the lowest category includes ’subjects of terrorist investigations.’ Don’t forget that warrantless wiretapping projects target vast networks of innocent civilians as well as the few real suspects in an investigation.

The FBI hopes to have a pilot project up and running by the middle of this year.”

If your paranoiac streak is not fully satisfied by this story, see also:

DNA Fingerprint Database for Worker’s Gattaca-Style Proposed: http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/Science-Fiction-News.asp?NewsNum=640

“Do we need a national DNA or fingerprint database for all American workers to address the immigration problem? New York’s Republican mayor Michael Bloomberg has gone on record advocating such a plan – a biometric identification system [http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/Technology-Article.asp?ArtNum=12] that would be compulsory for all workers.”

and in “Minority Report” style – “Precrime” Database For London Homicide Prevention Unit“: http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/Science-Fiction-News.asp?NewsNum=843

“Criminal profilers working for the London Metropolitan Police’s Homicide Prevention Unit are putting together a list of 100 future murderers.

I believe I am reading these reports correctly; they are not simply keeping a list of, let’s say, murderers who have done their time in prison and are now at large. This pilot project seeks to identify people who will in the future commit serious crimes.”…

“Instead they are using databases. It appears that the Unit is creating psychological profiles of likely offenders to predict patterns of behavior. Statements from former partners, information from mental health workers and details of past complaints are being combined to identify the 100 men most likely to commit murder in the near future.

Once an individual has been identified, police would decide whether to begin arrest proceedings, or alert social services who could steer targeted individuals into ‘management programs.’”

See “FBI wants instant access to British identity data“: http://www.guardian.co.uk/humanrights/story/0,,2241005,00.html

Tuesday January 15, 2008, The Guardian

Each person’s iris is as individual as their fingerprint, but with 266 identifiable features is much more detailed. Photograph: Science Photo Library “Senior British police officials are talking to the FBI about an international database to hunt for major criminals and terrorists.

The US-initiated programme, ‘Server in the Sky’, would take cooperation between the police forces way beyond the current faxing of fingerprints across the Atlantic. Allies in the ‘war against terror’ – the US, UK, Australia, Canada and New Zealand – have formed a working group, the International Information Consortium, to plan their strategy.

Biometric measurements, irises or palm prints as well as fingerprints, and other personal information are likely to be exchanged across the network. One section will feature the world’s most wanted suspects. The database could hold details of millions of criminals and suspects.”

Microchips To Be Implanted In UK Convicts: http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/Science-Fiction-News.asp?NewsNum=1403

“RFID-based microchips will soon be used to tag prisoners, according to a Ministry of Justice official in the United Kingdom.

(VeriChip RFID tag for human implantation) I’m assuming that they want to use something like the VeriChip, which is a very small Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tag about the size of a large grain of rice. It can be injected directly into the body; a special coating on the glass case of the chip helps it to bond with living tissue and stay in place. A special RFID reader broadcasts a signal, and the antenna in the VeriChip draws power from the reader and sends its data. The VeriChip is a passive RFID tag: since it does not require a battery, it has a virtually unlimited life span.

Officials want to use the technology to reduce overcrowding in prisons. The tagged prisoners would be released and then tracked.”

And for some crazy ideas, check out these futuristic techs:

Plasma-based propulsion is just one of OSU’s crazy projects for DARPA: http://dvice.com/archives/2008/01/plasmabased_pro.php

“The big brains at DARPA are at it again, this time teaming up with Oklahoma State University to develop unmanned aerial vehicles that will be small enough to fit into a soldier’s pocket. The heart of the project is the experimental propulsion system that has no moving parts and utilizes plasma thrusters. The need for such a tiny UAV comes after the realization that most of the unmanned reconnaissance vehicles used at the moment are poor indoors and in urban areas. OSU’s UAV would allow all soldiers to carry UAVs and see what they’re getting into before hand.”

Sound cloak is boon for concert halls, submarines: http://dvice.com/archives/2008/01/sound_cloak_is.php

“We’ve all heard the high school lesson about wave interference — like when sound waves hit an object, bending around it and crashing into each other to create a whole new pattern when they reach the other side. Now researches say that it might be possible to create a “cloak” for an object that would make the sound waves pass and emerge from the other side like they were never disturbed.Such a cloak is only theoretical at this point, but engineers at Duke University say they’ve come up with a “recipe” for an acoustic material that would make anything within disappear from sound waves, much like that invisibility cloak did for microwaves. Anyone designing a concert hall would love to have that recipe so they could negate the acoustic effect of structural components like beams. And if you could make it big enough, the cloak would even hide a submarine from sonar.”

See also: Tecnovelgy’s ‘Inaudibility Cloak’ Is Theoretically Possible: http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/Science-Fiction-News.asp?NewsNum=1401

and the press release from Duke University, Invisibility Cloaks’ Could Break Sound Barriers: http://www.pratt.duke.edu/news/?id=1193

And for one I see truly cool applications on this one for mobile use in business, military or simply home environments:

Mighty morphin’ shipping container transforms into house in 90 seconds flat: http://dvice.com/archives/2007/12/mighty_morphin.php

“It starts off as an ordinary shipping container, but throw a switch and ninety seconds later the Illy Push Button House has magically expanded into a five-room abode. Architect and designer Adam Kalkin created this jack-in-the-box-like dwelling, whose sections are unfolded by powerful hydraulic cylinders controlled by a computer in the kitchen section. The house is made out of recycled materials, and has a dining area in the center, surrounded by a bedroom, living room, library and kitchen.”

So, is Big Brother just around the corner? And what do we want? Technology, with it’s “anything goes” attitude, or a check on it? When technology goes rampant, we see both the good AND the bad. I wouldn’t mind a folding house, or a device that would slow my car to prevent a ticket, but I’m not sure about some of the more military style things, like the tiny “airplane,” which although it has great safety uses, it also can be used for spying, both military and non-military, the latter being more troublesome – either private or governmental use has some definite legal ramifications. As does the invisibility cloak, shades of Harry Potter.

Originally posted on Yahoo Group’s Hard SF by one of the author’s friends.

While this may bore the crap out of most, some may find some of the tangents of interest. I did it this way, only to spark some interest without discussing the story, “The N ine Billion Names of God,” by Arthur C. Clarke, which would instantaneously spoil it for those who haven’t read it, and every SF reader should read it at some point (it IS a “super” classic – reserved for only a select few that have stood the test of time, like Asimov’s “Nightfall,” and Clarke’s “The Star”), so why not make this little teensy gem your project for a few minutes? I need to know if anyone has read it yet, is planning to read it, or is not, so I know when I can start with more spoilers. In the meantime I will regal you with some factoids, “gossip” and tangential material. This story can be found on-line so no excuses. It’s a ten minute”throne” read: http://lucis.net/stuff/clarke/9billion_clarke.html.

Ursula K. LeGuin calls this story “one of the purest and neatest uses of the myth of science as omnipotent” (Norton 33). http://www.nvcc.edu/home/ataormina/scifi/works/stories/9billion.htm.

The site also has some basic reader guides, which are too basic and discrete for this story which to me is to be discussed in it’s entirety, both because of it’s short length, and because of it’s unique ending. It can’t really be split up without splitting hairs, IMHO. The story has been linked to numerous things, including even some brief references within the story itself to Shangri-La and to Sam Jaffe (who starred in the earlier version of the movie “Lost Horizon.” The parallel is striking. http://www.nvcc.edu/home/ataormina/scifi/works/stories/9billion.htm

It has also been considered by some as one of the best endings, and best short stories. http://math.cofc.edu/kasman/MATHFICT/mfview.php?callnumber=mf82

One of the tangential “links” is to John von Neumann, one of the early computing pioneers from Princeton, who completed his seminal computer, the “Johnniac” with RAND in 1952, a year before Clarke’s story came out. Nevertheless, the resemblance between his alleged quote (below) and the story are more than coincidental in many ways. “In chapter 12 of Adventures of a Mathematician, Stan Ulam’s autobiography, Ulam has a passage about the efforts of John von Neumann to build a general purpose computer at the Institute for Advanced Studies at Princeton University. Ulam quotes von Neumann as telling him, “I don’t know how really useful this will be. But at any rate it will be possible to get a lot credit in Tibet by coding ‘Om Mane Padme Hum’ [Oh thou flower of lotus] a hundred million times in an hour. It will far exceed anything a prayer wheel can do.” (page 230).”" Clarke’s story appeared in 1953. Ulam’s book is vague as to when von Neumann made the statement. Von Neumann’s computer was completed in 1952. Ulam says that von Neumann made the comment “When the machine neared completion.” Despite this, I suspect von Neumann got the idea from Clarke’s story, rather than the other way ’round, and that Ulam was confused about when that particular conversation occurred.” http://math.cofc.edu/kasman/MATHFICT/mfview.php?callnumber=mf82

Ulam’s autobiography was written in 1983, almost 30 years after the events described, so memory could be a little shaky on dates. It is mentioned in another source, but this one states that the quote merely referred to the computer, and so could have been dated at anytime. In “Eurekas and Euphorias: The Oxford Book of Scientific Anecdotes” By Walter Gratzer, it says that von Neumann made the “Johnniac,” the fastest computer of it’s time, and it was “of which” that he made the quip about the mantra. http://books.google.com/books?id=yDBep9y0SVsC&pg=PA159&lpg=PA159&dq=john\+von+neumann+tibet+coding+om+mane+padme+hum&source=web&ots=0s7HfnHiw_&si\g=Ptn0q11vpkvUulnKM8NQaeIMPlU

So which came first, the Chicken (Nine Billion) or the Egg (von Neumann’s quote on the mantra)? Now, in an interesting personal side note to me (I wrote a paper in law school called “The Benko Gambit” which was about Games Theory and the Law), von Neumann is credited as being one of the founders of Game Theory, along with Oskar Morgenstern. “His first significant contribution was the minimax theorem of 1928. This theorem establishes that in certain zero sum games involving perfect information (in which players know a priori the strategies of their opponents as well as their consequences), there exists one strategy which allows both players to minimize their maximum losses (hence the name minimax). When examining every possible strategy, a player must consider all the possible responses of the player’s adversary and the maximum loss. The player then plays out the strategy which will result in the minimization of this maximum loss. Such a strategy, which minimizes the maximum loss, is called optimal for both players just in case their minimaxes are equal (in absolute value) and contrary (in sign). If the common value is zero,the game becomes pointless. Von Neumann eventually improved and extended the minimax theorem to include games involving imperfect information and games with more than two players. This work culminated in the 1944 classic “Theory of Games and Economic Behavior” (written with Oskar Morgenstern). This resulted in such public attention that The New York Times did a front page story, the likes of which only Einstein had previously earned.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_von_Neumann

While this has absolutely nothing to do with Nine Billion, it came as a tangent from the story on von Neumann, and is of immense fascination to me. How the wheel of life does turn…

Also, “as a member of the United States Atomic Energy Commission,starting from 1953 up until his death in 1957, he was influential in setting U.S. scientific and military policy. Through his committee, he developed various scenarios of nuclear proliferation, the development of intercontinental and submarine missiles with atomic warheads, and the controversial strategic equilibrium called mutual assured destruction (aka the M.A.D. doctrine).” My, he got around in the ’50s. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_von_Neumann

The story has been mentioned by some as having a relationship to the mystical Jewish Kabbalah, although in actuality, while there are similarities, the reason behind the search is different. (I lost the references to this in one of my “crashes.”): The Kabbalah Center International states on the 72 names of God:

“Kabbalah teaches that every human being shares the same ultimate purpose in life, which is to receive the complete joy and fulfillment that God desires for us. But while this is easy to say, true spiritual work is needed to remove the negative tendencies that separate us from life’s gifts. And as we undertake this work, our souls need technical support, as would a computer or any other highly sensitive mechanism.One of Kabbalah’s most important teachings is that we are not alone in life’s tasks. There are powerful tools to help us, including the Bible itself. Kabbalah teaches that the Bible is neither a topic for academic study nor a book of commandments and prohibitions meant to be taken literally. Rather, the Bible is a coded document in which the true underpinnings of the universe lie hidden — including the amazing spiritual technology known as the 72 Names of God.

What exactly are the 72 Names? According to Kabbalistic teachings, 72 unique combinations of Hebrew letters from Chapter 14 of the book of Exodus create a spiritual vibration that is a powerful antidote to the negative energy of the human ego. This revelation is a crucial step forward in the work of Kabbalistic masters over thousands of years. Each succeeding generation of sages has advanced the task of decoding the Bible — each building on the work of those who came before, each making its own contribution to Kabbalistic wisdom. The purpose and commitment of the Kabbalah Centre is to continue this work. Kabbalistic scholar Yehuda Berg devoted five years to researching and discovering the concealed meanings of the combinations of letters that comprise the 72 Names. Their revelation has been a breakthrough in the centuries-long history of Kabbalah. The key to connecting with the power of the Names is found in the specific biblical passages from which they are derived. As the Bible describes, 600,000 Israelites stood on the banks of the Red Sea. Pharaoh and the Egyptian army were in pursuit. With the water in front of them and their enemies behind them, there seemed to be nowhere the Israelites could turn. They could only cry out to God for salvation. And what did the Creator say in response to their cries?

This is one of the most carefully studied and debated passages in all biblical scholarship. The reply was: “Why are you calling out to me?”But whom could the Israelites call upon if not God? The Kabbalists explain that the passage is an encrypted message explaining the secret of human nature and the way to overcome the challenges we face throughout our lives. In its commentary on this passage, the Zohar, the source of Kabbalistic wisdom, explains that there was no need for the Creator’s help —because at that moment Moses revealed the 72 Names, and the collective consciousness of the people was elevated. But not a single molecule of water moved until the people had physically moved forward into the sea with unwavering certainty. Only when they were neck-deep in the waves— and still maintained complete certainty that the water would part— did the sea part to give them a passage to freedom.

As the Zohar makes clear, the purpose of the 72 Names is hidden in the story in which they are found. The Names are a tool to help humanity gain control over chaos by controlling physical nature. By their use of the 72 Names, the Israelites overcame the ego-based negativity of doubt and thus changed the nature of water until it no longer flowed.

According to Kabbalah, humanity is destined to have control over physical nature; the only obstacle is our ego. Overcoming ego at its very foundation brings control of the physical world, and that is the purpose of the INSTRUMENT THAT IS THE 72 NAMES. The Zohar further explains that, despite what we might believe, our ego is not actually who we are. Rather, the Kabbalists describe the ego it as a garment, a curtain that hides the Light of our genuine selves. Our purpose in this world is to remove the garment that conceals our true essence and potential.” http://www.kabbalah.com/kabbalah/12.php

And according to one poster, who ties in the end of the story, Nine Billion has a similar “thought” to Andre Schwarz-Bart’s “The Last of the Just,” an epic story of the Jewish history and culminating with the holocaust. (cite lost again in a crash)

In Jewish terms, the title refers to “the tradition of the Just Men [as] an ancient one, dating from the time of the prophet Isiah. These thirty-six mortals “are the hearts of the world multiplied, and into them, as into one receptacle, pour all our griefs.” Without the Just Men to witness and accept the suffering of humanity, mankind could not survive. It would be overwhelmed by the knowledge of the cruelty men inflict on their fellow men. “The Last of the Just” is an account of how the descendants of Rabbi Yom Tov shouldered the burden of this knowledge.”
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbninquiry.asp?ean=97815856\70161&z=y

The book apparently details what happens when these men are gone. WARNING SPOILER!!:

“[W]hen the Shoah [Holocaust] is rather the end of “history” as the West has constructed it for the last three hundred years.”
http://www.questia.com/googleScholar.qst?docId=5000362130

It’s even becoming part of our lexicon (for want of a better word) as seen in the blog of a Jewish scholar:”Being an academic short-timer is an odd experience: the joy of not having to attend department meetings is balanced with the grief of having to come up with sensible answers to “what are you doing next year?” I have so far resisted the temptation to answer with either Wonderful Fabrications (“I’m heading up a secret government-funded lab to reverse the Nine Billion Names of God”)” http://www.baraita.net/blog/archives/2006_05.html<

Now it also appears that the concept (WARNING SPOILER!!)

has been co-opted in a movie: “In the movie Warlock (1989 film) , <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warlock_%281989_film%29>, the main character seeks out the pages of the Grand Grimoire which can be commanded to reveal the true lost name of God. If it can be spoken backwards, the universe will end. Viewers are shown the letters forming,but not the actual word, and the Warlock does not get beyond pronouncing the first (last) syllable before he is killed” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_God. Sort of Nine Billion without the hook.

The same link also talks about the Islam’s 99 names of God, which are His attributes, and how in Jewish tradition, once one has written the name of God, it cannot be destroyed, but must be eventually buried.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_God

Okay, my research on Nine Billion Names led me to this von Neumann, who is at the heart of everything – Games Theory, MAD, and now, self-replicating probes, the basis of many SF novels, TV shows (the Replicators in Stargate), and movies (2001: A Space Odyssey), so there is even a cross reference to Clarke there. I recall reading one recently (and it’s not one of the ones listed. It was about generation ships, that self-replicated, and also Karl Schroeder’s “Ventus” was about SRPs). Check this out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-replicating_spacecraft

Sweeeet Jesus! The things I find that blow my mind. Too much to learn – I don’t have the capacity. I’m 640K in a 1 Gig world. I’m going to self-destruct in 60 seconds….