Engine economy

This is my first posting in over two weeks. I just moved to Dallas and my new job is occupying most free time, thus, my posting frequency is going to decline. Since no one has ads on my blog, I feel free to do so.

In prior posts, Volt Full of Trouble, The Inconvenient Electric Car, and The real future energy crisis look into energy issues relating to transportation. I discuss the aspects of what will occur when crude oil supplies are depleted worldwide in the latter post. The former posts investigate why the electric car and hybrid are poor replacements for the current technology. My over all conclusion is we need a liquid alternative to crude oil along with innovative engines.

This post on MSNBC.com is just what the doctor ordered. Researchers at Michigan State University have developed their Wave Disc Generator. According to the authors,

The Wave Disk Generator uses 60 percent of its fuel for propulsion; standard car engines use just 15 percent. As a result, the generator is 3.5 times more fuel efficient than typical combustion engines.

If true, this is quite an improvement over current 100 year-old technology. They even claim that it reduces emissions by 90 percent in comparison to typical internal combustion engines. Double bonus for clean air.

How the engine works creating such high efficiency,

The engine has a rotor that's equipped with wave-like channels that trap and mix oxygen and fuel as the rotor spins. These central inlets are blocked off, building pressure within the chamber, causing a shock wave that ignites the compressed air and fuel to transmit energy.

If claims are true or not, it is going to be new technologies similar to this prototype that is our future, not electric cars.

Japanese suffering

The news outlets are all loaded with the recent 8.9 earthquake followed with a tsunami that hit the northeast of Japan. My condolences and prayers go out to those poor people caught up in this horrendous disaster. There is nothing good to come of this mess. The media is focusing on the nuclear reactor problems Japan is having, but I believe that the problems with meltdown are overblown and the government should worry about other much more severe problems at hand.

Nuclear reactor issues at Fukushima have caused quite a stir. Some of the buildings had explosions and several fires have erupted. The fear is of a reactor meltdown releasing a significant amount of radioactive material into the atmosphere may occur if officials can not cool down a couple of the reactors. Fear of a meltdown is real. Radiation in the local area has been measured at a magnitude or greater than background. Long term exposure to this level is unhealthy, but could mitigated. If meltdown does commence, the release would be devastating to local regions up to 50 miles from the plant. Anyone present when a meltdown release occurs would be exposed to a large quantity of toxic materials potentially resulting in all sorts of radiation sickness and future cancer. Very bad! Beyond the local region, I do not see effects from radiation or radioactive materials hurting people. Even with winds blowing materials.

What should be of concern are more mundane, yet destructive problems that could occur from the disaster. The ability to deliver clean water and food has been wiped out by the disaster. Transportation methods are all disabled. Millions of people are also homeless in the aftermath. If these people do quickly get water and food, they will face dehydration or starvation. This requires only a few days without basics, so this threat is imminent. Getting in the necessary supplies into the area is difficult when roads, railways, airports and shipping are all wiped out. The secondary threat is from water-born disease. Cholera and typhoid easily spread with stagnate water loaded full of dirty debris including sewage and various animal/human corps. Dealing with a health epidemic inside a natural disaster would only add to the woes. If either problem previously described in this paragraph take hold, tens of thousand of people could unnecessarily perish.

I guess our media has to hype the politically sensitive issues even though they are the least threatening. No one wants to tune into hear the standard starvation/disease monologue which occurs routinely. Nuclear meltdowns occur once in a decade and make sensational stories. When watching media stories, remember this.

Ever elusive hipness

Update: 3-9-2011:

One of my Facebook friends, Damian, pointed out that there are many groups who define what is "hip". What one group finds hip another finds repulsive. He is correct in this sense. There are many subcultures out there with a hip or in-crowd. Each is unique in their style, geography, social class, age range and philosophy. The best example I can think of a subculture is '80s punk's nihilistic underground. My original post covers what would be considered "mainstream American youth culture". The original post points to the ever changing composition of mainstream youth culture and its obsession with materialism and lack of philosophical ideals in comparison to recent youth movements.

Original Post:

Most of my posts tend to cover technology with a little finance thrown in for spice. This post is a personal view of modern American life. It is about the current state of being "hip" or "cool". The in-crowd member. American hipness is for young adults in the late teens through their 20's before they settle down and have kids. This is common and nothing new. Even in my 20's I was not with the in-crowd, but could spot culture trends. What I find confounding is the vapid nature of current hipsters.

Let's go back to previous decades, the 60's, 70's and 80's. In these decades, styles tended to be easy to pick out along with their social movements. The 60's had long-haired, second-hand clothed hippies. It was not difficult to pick out the styles and imitate them. The 70's had similar styles as the '60s, but certain aspects changed, most definitely the music. Fast-forward to the '80s, everything changed with the punk movement, electronica movement and hair-metal bands. Head-bands, bracelets, torn jeans and bright colors ruled the day. One could pick out these distinct styles. We will move on to early '90s with the grunge movement. The grunge movement was the antithesis of the '80s hair-metal. Simplistic in nature, grunge was easy to spot.

In the late '90s, styles became less distinct. There was no large scale social movement. Music became a rehash of prior styles (much of it good). Style sort of fell into a drift. What is cool? It seems like to be hip one had to have direct connection with the hip crowd. Styles change so fast it is difficult to even recognize that hat you are wearing was soooooooooo yesterday.

It almost seems as a few people monopolize on being hip. Instead of fitting into a crowd, it became excluding the majority of people, even young people. Often today, being a hipster has a negative connotation. I had a few friends about 4 years ago who were 18-19 years old. They were aspiring artists (i.e. no money). By all means, they would be considered hip. One night while at their numerous parties, a friend mentioned his bad run-in with a group of "hipsters" in Austin. This struck me as odd, but thinking more about it, it makes sense. I also know of a young lady who tried to keep up with the in-crowd and the chase put her $30,000 in debt. Currently, I believe being hip is more than about style and nothing to do with a social movement. It is about being the proper age/class and that is about being both young and wealthy.

I believe this reflects the income disparity and social stratification in our society. Even the youth are voluntarily excluding each other. Distinction not by race, religion, age, or philosophy, but exclusion by economic class.

Dwarfs will rule the world!

Well, no, dwarfs may not rule the world. There is a good chance a certain group will outlive their contemporaries though. This recent study out of the University of Southern California studied a group of dwarfs who have Laron syndrome in Ecuador and worldwide. Laron syndrome is genetic and effects how growth is regulated in the body.

The individuals have Laron syndrome, a rare disease that causes stunted growth in about 250 people worldwide. Scientists have known the syndrome results from a mutation in a gene that regulates how cells grow and divide.

The dwarfism cause is also a barrier to cancer and diabetes. The disease limiting culprit in Laron's cases appears to be an insulin producing protein that binds with human growth hormone, insulin-like growth factor 1 or IGF1.

High levels of IGF1 have been implicated in cancer and diabetes in previous studies, and low levels have been found to cause increased longevity in everything from yeast and worms to mice.

"In worms, we don't see diabetes or cancer or anything — once we establish this potential [to extend life] in worms, we moved to mice," said Felipe Sierra, director of the Division of Aging Biology at the National Institute on Aging. "We do see similar things in this study [of humans], and it validates everything we do."

Sure enough, in the short-statured Ecuadorean group, the study revealed that deficient growth hormone receptor led to low levels of IGF1, and this was associated with the disease-resistance.

The final intention is development of a drug that will mimic reduced IGF1 in healthy individuals reducing cancer and diabetes.

Interesting concept, but I would guess other negative side effects would appear besides the positive reduction in cancer rates and diabetes. Wikipedia states one of the disease's symptoms in men puts fear in almost any healthy male,

.....a very small penis.