Ti Foam for Bones

In the Marvel Universe, Adamantium is a metal that provides Wolverine with superstructeral strength, that we can only dream of here in Reality. Yet the marvels of the fantasy realm have been drawn a little closer to the real world this past week, with an announcement that a Titanium foam has been developed to reinforce skeletal bone in a way never before possible. This breakthrough comes from the Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Technology and Advanced Materials Research in Dresden, Germany, and Dr. Peter Quadbeck is eager to see this exciting new application approved for use in humans in the near future.

Titanium: A Star is Born

In an age where hydrocarbons still reign supreme, Titanium is finally starting its ascent to a higher orbit around the Technological Sphere, where it will certainly offer us much better views of what the world could actually be, as opposed to what it is at present.

Even though Titanium is the 7th most common element on earth, and is found in everything from reflective paint to orbital satellites, it’s still a long way from being a common household name though. Fortunately, a steady succession of exciting new developments in key areas such as Metallurgy, NanoTech, BioTech, and Environmental & Health Sciences, and even Hydrogen production means that Titanium isn’t going to be dutifully playing the humble part of the unsung hero for very much longer now…

In fact, Titanium (either it’s Oxides or ductile metallic forms) are now poised to far surpass their already enormous roles in countless current technologies and applications (which we’ve already looked at if you’re curious), and start rocketing Humanity into some truly exciting new areas via emerging technologies and revolutionary industrial applications that promise exciting new sources of clean energy, as well as pollution controlling methods for the old ones.

The only remaining question isn’t ‘how’ or ‘when’ we’re going to see genuine signs of Titanium-based progress gaining mainstream visibility, but rather, just how far will Titanium take us into a clearly visible Future which is imminently ready to become our new current Reality!

Titanium Oxide – An Unsung Hero

Have you ever wondered what makes white stuff so brilliantly white? Or what it is that makes reflective surfaces shine so brightly in the light? Well, from this point forward you’ll know that the unsung hero of the Industrial World is Titanium Dioxide – or to those of you who already know and love it, TiO2. Titanium is found in everything from Class M Stars, to your tube of toothpaste, yet most other people have still never even heard of the stuff. So let’s start with a very quick rundown of Titanium Oxide’s highly impressive resume and it’s countless current applications, before we go on to discover the monumental impact that TiO2′s will soon have on some very exciting new and emerging technologies, which demonstrate its enormous potential for enabling a wide range of truly futuristic applications as well. Potential that will certainly dwarf it’s already enormous contributions to Technology, Industry, and Society at large.

So TiO2 enables us to drive safely at night with it’s brilliantly bright signs and markings, without risking tragedy on darkened roads, and this is where our discover begins…

Could Literacy Limit Growth?

Evidently, Earth’s ecology continues to be impacted by the unbridled effects of Human consumption and population growth. Resulting in more people seeming willing to take some rather difficult stances on key issues. Especially ones that contribute to Humanity’s disproportionate impact upon our shared Environment. Specifically, our mushrooming need for food and fuel in a world that is already precariously overpopulated has become a hot topic again, and re-raises the specter of Population Control. A subject that everyone expects to be personally managed via contraceptive methods, rather than anything more Orwellian, of course. There is a game-changing factor that’s still being overlooked in this difficult question though; which is the very real correlation between Women’s Literacy or basic education, and drastically lowered birth rates!

As evidenced below (and elsewhere), raising Literacy rates for women, would seem to directly impact impact birth-rates, and then human population levels, and thus our total consumptions – Especially as third world populations clamor to achieve a more Western lifestyle and comparable rate of Consumption.

If you’re curious about the science behind this intuitive connection between literacy and lowered birthrates, here’s some hard info for you. If you’re already comfortable with the reasons for this correlation, then you might also consider why Literacy could be placed up at the forefront of efforts to reduce Global Warming…

Algae Fuels Hopes for Life Without Big Oil!

Let’s cover off what you what you might already know…. Algae are a rather simple life-form that come in well over 65,000 different varieties (with possibly 100′s of thousands more to be identified still!), and they remain on the bleeding edge of Renewable Energy research, and represent a Holy Grail for many of the Disciples of BioFuels since they can also convert light and CO2 into oils and sugars like nothing else on Earth! The trouble with this ‘soon to bloom’ solution, is that most of the large PetroChemical Giants are also already well up to speed in their efforts to squeeze oil out of algae, and they are even starting to be awarded Patents on both processes, and even certain breeds (or mutations) of Algae in order to keep someone else from getting a competetive edge in this newly developing industry.

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Of course, this is a familiar story about how progress gets held back by powerful interests that seek to monopolize new ideas, and effectively kill growth prospects for everyone else…But in the case of algae, there might actually be enough biodiversity to go around for everyone, and we might all soon be singing the praises of this smelly, slimy deterant for swimmers, as we thumb our noses at the oil giants who are still trying to get the most from their well-heads.

That is of course, if there’s enough desire for cooperation between Bankers, Researchers, and the independent Industrialists who can move these ideas forward , rather than holding all their cards too close to their chest… Surely we don’t need another reason to wonder what companies like BP, Shell, and Exxon-Mobile have hidden in their sleeves, when it comes to assimilating good energy ideas, and then sitting on them until the oil runs dry!

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The True Nature of Contrails

	If you’d like a clear view of what creates Jet Contrails just: Click for Facts…

If you think that jet travel isn’t playing a major role in either climate change, or modified atmospheric chemistry, then you probably don’t need to dive into this deeper exploration. Otherwise you might find some points of interests below to move on with.

In our explorations of jet exhaust and ‘vapour contrails‘ and the impact of air travel on our Future Environment, we’ve made previous attempts to speculate upon why certain channels in the Mainstream Media have taken interest in a rather weak Conspiracy Theory like “Chemtrails”, rather than digging into the underlying science of Contrails (and environmental impact of jet exhaust) for a bonefide piece of investigative journalism on a possibly much deeper conspiracy.

If there’s such a things as covering up “conspiracies” with weaker conspiracy theories, then it’s quite possible that the airline industry knows full well that it is doing serious damage to the stratosphere. That the prevalence of “Chemtrail” theories might simply be serving to throw people off the trail by simply associating any negative environmental news about airliners with more easily dismissed “conspiracy theories”…

Cloudy Coverup for Climate Change

        

In an effort to wrap our collective heads around all the Causes that can Effect Climate Change, perhaps we could go up into Space to gain some seriously wide-angle perspectives on the subject, and then come back down to Earth with a more grounded view of what’s driving this change.

The first layer of atmosphere that we encounter upon re-entry is the Mesospehere, and it’s a frontier zone that’s only now being better explored for it’s peculiar properties. What’s driving this curiosity are visible signs of changes going on up there, which are impacting some wild theories about geo-engineering the skies, to counteract climate change down here.

More than 120 years after their discovery, Noctilucent Clouds (from the Latin words for “Night Shining”) remain a mysterious enigma that only appears up at the very edge of space – or about 75-85 kilometers (50 miles) straight up! This area is called the Mesosphere, and it’s not only very cold (-193F/-125C), but it’s also incredibly dry. Studies show that the mesosphere is about 100 MILLION times drier than the Sahara, so one of the questions that we find 80 kms above us is: just how do these eerie clouds form under such poor conditions? Just to contrast abit, the highest clouds that we normally see are called Cirrus, and form at only about 11 km (36,000feet) where it only gets down to about -40C.

So…Let’s consider what makes clouds to begin with? Basically ice crystals, or rain need to two things to form. A dust (1)particle that allows (2)water vapor to collect/condense around the particle in a process called “nucleation”. The theories on Noctilucent Clouds are that the dust required to form them at that altitude is either coming from space, or somehow coming up from the surface far, far below. Water vapor is also incredibly scarce at that altitude, which suggests theories that the water is actually coming from rocket exhaust. An even more fascinating theory suggests that oxidized Methane* is at the supply base for the components of water since atmospheric methane levels have been increasing since the 19th century, and have more than doubled in the past century! So we might be just seeing the early signs of some new form of climate change at work up there at the edge of space…

Geo-Engineering: Laying Foundations

Geo-Engineering has been a fringe science since the Sixties (when it first became popular to believe that Technology could fix anything), and it seems to be finally coming into vogue after being brought to back to public attention by mainstream Media sources such as the New York Times .

Before drilling down too deep though, let’s start by sharpening some of our bits of terminology first.

Unlike BIO-Engineering, which seeks to apply pure Science via Technological processes to produce engineered results in Biological fields (from GM’d corn, to the materials of Orthpaedic hip-joint replacement hardware), GEO-Engineering seeks to take the same approach to the entire Earth in order to effect positive changes to our environment. Regrettably, the term Geo-Engineering seems to have been misappropriated and popularized as a description of Ecological or Environmental engineering applications on a global scale, even though the terms Enviro, Global, or ECO-Engineering would likely have been a more appropriate descriptors. Unfortunately for the real Geo-Engineers out there (who’ve been working long and hard on true Geological Engineering), the term GEO has already been co-opted by Environmentalists, adopted by the Media, and is now popularized to represent a much more narrow scope of applied technological solutions to our most pressing issues around Climate Change. So Geo-Engineering has effectively come to mean something else entirely to all of us (relatively ignorant) non-engineers.

So….Geo-Engineering (as we currently accept the poorly defined definition) is a notably complex endeavor that requires the collection, collation and application of knowledge from three VERY large areas of study:

* Scientific disciplines including Climatology, Biochemistry, Ecology, Meteorology and several subsets of Biology and Physics
* Engineering disciplines including aeronautical, naval, architectural, ballistics, propulsion, and materials Engineering.
* Regulatory/Management and other control disciplines such as business process and risk management, and realtime operational research…and of course an insanely complex and interdependent maze of International Politics, Regulations, Diplomacy, and Trade.

Before delving into these ridiculously broad categories of study, first, let’s just put away any indignant or ignorant self-righteousness about “playing God” with the environment. Insteaed, let’s simply admit that we’ve already been toying with our Ecology, and changing the Earths environment in countless ways for a long time now already.

Whether it’s by altering watersheds and aquifers, re-engineering entire drainage systems for irrigation or hydro power, or by clearcutting the heat and CO2 consuming capacity of entire forests, and let’s not forget the ongoing and always contentious issues behind enormous volumes of CO2 (and other more potent greenhouse gases) escaping into the atmosphere, as Humans we are already very deeply ensnared in the tricky game of Geo-Engineering. Thus the dire scenarios described as AGW, or “Anthropogenic” (man-made) Global Warming are directly attributed to Human activities, which nobody questions as being capable of changing an entire planet.

So since we’ve already been behaving like foolish Gods (or rather like some lesser being that has self-provisioned itself with Godlike dominion over nature according to some self-distorting Judeao-Christian fallacy) let’s then look at the risks of Geo-Engineering more realistically.

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