Solar Powered Air Conditioning Under Development

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The consumer-grade absorption chiller under development by UC3M uses the heat of the sun to cool water. (Source: Universidad Carlos III of Madrid)

The sun will keep you cool in just a few seasons.

The Montreal Protocol, crafted in 1987 and signed by 191 countries as of 2007, put the hot iron to the cooling industry. It has seen several revisions since 1987 and some of its strictures affect industry as a whole while others involve mainly cooling and refrigeration.

The ultimate goal of the protocol is to reduce the amount of several ozone-depleting chemicals used by industrialized nations to zero. Most CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons) were to be phased out of use by 1996; other less dangerous CFCs and chemicals are to be phased out by 2010; HCFCs (hydrochlorofluorocarbons) are on a longer leash, and have cease and desist date of 2030, 2020 in developed nations.

Unfortunately for the air-conditioning and refrigeration industries, this means an industry-wide change in practice, as HCFCs are commonly used as refrigerants in modern cooling machines. There are several technologies that cool without the use of these refrigerants, but until recently, they have been utilized mostly only in large-scale applications. Absorption chillers are used in many industries, from commercial to machinery cooling.

Absorption chilling differs from standard mechanical air conditioning in that it doesn't use an active force, such as a compressor, to condense the coolant chemical, but rather uses heat to drive a circulatory system. Many absorption chillers are utilized in areas where ample amounts of waste heat are available (turbine power or water heating systems are common sources). This allows them to make use of waste heat for a secondary purpose, thereby making the entire system more efficient and cost-effective.

This nearly century-old technology has not been widely used in consumer arenas like home cooling as the heat needed to power the system would cost more than the typical compressor-driven air-conditioning unit and there are not usually readily available sources of waste heat powerful enough to harness. Professor Marcelo Izquierdo of the Universidad Carlos III of Madrid and his group of researchers are aiming to put this technology into homes, however, with a little help from a very large furnace – the sun.

Izquierdo's team built an absorption chiller unit that closely resembles a typical exterior air-conditioning unit, and it works by capturing solar energy and residual heat to provide the impetus for the system's circulation. The device uses a refined lithium bromide-based coolant process – most absorption chillers use either an ammonia, hydrogen and water or a lithium bromide solution and water system – and is capable of cooling water to a temperature of 7C to 18C with an ambient temperature of 33 to 43C. The machine can produce enough chilled water to cool a 120 cubic meter area via a water-to-air heat exchanger.

Neither the lithium-bromide solution nor the more common ammonia and hydrogen systems are ozone depleting. This makes them a viable alternative to the HCFC refrigerants used in modern compression systems. In the very near future, consumer-grade absorption chiller units could become common in many regions that experience high temperatures during one or many seasons. Using the Big Heater in the Sky itself to power the cooling units is an ironic twist and one definitely worthy of more research.

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Female Soldiers Around the World

These female soldiers are ready to protect their respective countries from enemies, although some of them can easily make their way through to the men’s magazine covers. Enjoy and discuss! Which country’s military has the sexiest girls? Share your views in the comments!

Romania

Germany

Pakistan

Denmark

Nepal

Brazil

Australia

Canada

Belgium

France

Finland

New Zealand

Italy

Greece

Norway

Spain

Vietnam

Ukraine

Kashmir

Bahrain

Iran

Poland

Netherlands

Israel

Algeria

Austria

Chile

United Kingdom

Estonia

Czech Republic

Japan

Russia

Portugal

Switzerland

Sweden

USA

South Korea

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Mankind to wage wars for water by 2025

The shortage of fresh water on planet Earth is likely to become the biggest problem ever during the forthcoming decades. Experts from the International Water Management Institute said in their recent report that the water crisis in the world would occur because of the growing number of population.


Mankind to wage wars for water by 2025.

According to the UN, the population of planet Earth will grow from 6 to 8.5 billion people by 2030. One person living in an industrially developed country consumes up to 3,000 liters of water a year. If the global population grows by 2.5 billion, it will be necessary to find additional 2,000 cubic kilometers of water for their living.

“The global consumption of water has increased six times during the recent 100 years and will double by 2050. There are countries that have already run out of water reserves for the production of their food. The shortage of fresh water will inevitably boost prices on this resource,” the Director of the International Water Management Institute, Frank Rijsberman said.

The accelerating urbanization and the rising living standard will set forth new requirements to the quality of water. Drinking water and industrial water is obtained from one and the same sources. It may just so happen that agricultural producers, for example, will face serious problems with the required volumes of water.

Mankind will have to deal with a serious shortage of water in 25 years. Earth’s fresh water reserves will not be enough to feed the growing population of the planet. Specialists say that one should take urgent measures now to solve the water problem. The list of measures includes the construction of water reservoirs, the use of rain water for irrigation of fields and gardens, etc.

It is not the first time when futurologists raise the water crisis subject. They believe that the crisis may occur even before the planet runs out of its fresh water. The shortage of water can be accompanied with large-scale military conflicts.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon raised the subject in December 2007 at the first Asian-Pacific Water Forum, which took place in Japan. Ban Ki-moon said that one-third of Earth’s population lives in the areas, which already suffer from the lack of water. More importantly, about 1.1 billion people living on the planet nowadays do not have access to fresh water which poses no health risks.

Humans still pollute water sources irresponsibly and do not seem to care about the consequences.

The problem of water shortage is especially serious in the countries of Africa and Asia. It is an open secret that drought-prone countries suffer from the shortage of water most. Deforestation is extremely dangerous at this point too. Flora is the inseparable member of the circulation of water. Water can not be found in the places where flora has been destroyed.

The issue of water shortage in Russia is less serious than in other parts of the world. However, the delivery of water to consumers can become a very big problem instead: water pipelines and supplies are depreciated in many Russian cities. In addition, up to 60 percent of drinking water in Russia does not correspond to sanitary norms. About 40 percent of surface and 17 percent of underground sources of drinking water do not match the norms either.

Not only are there 1.1 billion without adequate drinking water, but the United Nations acknowledges 2.6 billion people are without adequate water for sanitation (e.g. wastewater disposal). The issues are coupled, since, without water for sewage disposal, cross-contamination of drinking water by untreated sewage is the chief adverse outcome of inadequate safe water supply. Consequently, disease and significant deaths arise from people using contaminated water supplies; these effects are particularly pronounced for children in underdeveloped countries, where 3900 children per day die of diarrhea alone.

While these deaths are generally considered preventable, the situation is considerably more complex, since the Earth is beyond its carrying capacity with respect to available fresh water. Often technology is advanced as a panacea, but the costs of technology presently exclude a number of countries from availing themselves of these solutions. If lesser developed countries acquire more wealth, partial mitigation will occur, but sustainable solutions must involve each region in balancing population to water resource and in managing water resources more optimally. In any case the finite nature of the water resource must be acknowledged if the world is to achieve a better balance.

There are many other countries of the world that are severely impacted with regard to human health and inadequate drinking water. The following is a partial list of some of the countries with significant populations (numerical population of affected population listed) whose only consumption is of contaminated water:

Sudan 12.3 million
Iran 5.6 million
Venezuela 5.0 million
Syria 3.8 million
Zimbabwe 2.7 million
Tunisia 2.1 million
Cuba 1.2 million

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Flat screen TVs blamed for accelerating global warming

A gas used in the making of flat screen televisions, nitrogen trifluoride (NF3), is being blamed for damaging the atmosphere and accelerating global warming.

Almost half of the televisions sold around the globe so far this year have been plasma or LCD TVs.

But this boom could be coming at a huge environmental cost.

The gas, widely used in the manufacture of flat screen TVs, is estimated to be 17,000 times as powerful as carbon dioxide.

Ironically, NF3 is not covered by the Kyoto protocol as it was only produced in tiny amounts when the treaty was signed in 1997.

Levels of this gas in the atmosphere have not been measured, but scientists say it is a concern and are calling for it to be included in any future emissions cutting agreement.

Professor Michael Prather from the University of California has highlighted the issue in an article for the magazine New Scientist.

He has told ABC's The World Today program that output of the gas needs to be measured.

"One of my titles for this paper was Going Below Kyoto's Radar. It's the kind of gas that's made in huge amounts," he said.

"Not only is it not in the Kyoto Treaty but you don't even have to report it. That's the part that worries me."

He estimates 4,000 tons of NF3 will be produced in 2008 and that number is likely to double next year.

"We don't know what's emitted, but what they're producing every year dwarfs these giant coal-fired power plants that are like the biggest in the world," he said.

"And it dwarfs two of the Kyoto gases. So the real question we don't know is how much is escaping and getting out."

Dr Paul Fraser is the chief research scientist at the CSIRO's marine and atmospheric research centre, and an IPCC author.

He says without measuring the quantity of NF3 in the atmosphere it is unclear what impact it will have on the climate.

"We haven't observed it in the atmosphere. It's probably there in very low concentrations," he said.

"The key to whether it's a problem or not is how much is released to the atmosphere."

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Cancer 'cure' in mice to be tested in humans

Scientists at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center are about to embark on a human trial to test whether a new cancer treatment will be as effective at eradicating cancer in humans as it has proven to be in mice.

The treatment will involve transfusing specific white blood cells, called granulocytes, from select donors, into patients with advanced forms of cancer. A similar treatment using white blood cells from cancer-resistant mice has previously been highly successful, curing 100 percent of lab mice afflicted with advanced malignancies.

Zheng Cui, Ph.D., lead researcher and associate professor of pathology, will be announcing the study June 28 at the Understanding Aging conference in Los Angeles.

The study, given the go-ahead by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, will involve treating human cancer patients with white blood cells from healthy young people whose immune systems produce cells with high levels of cancer-fighting activity.

The basis of the study is the scientists' discovery, published five years ago, of a cancer-resistant mouse and their subsequent finding that white blood cells from that mouse and its offspring cured advanced cancers in ordinary laboratory mice. They have since identified similar cancer-killing activity in the white blood cells of some healthy humans.

"In mice, we've been able to eradicate even highly aggressive forms of malignancy with extremely large tumors," Cui said. "Hopefully, we will see the same results in humans. Our laboratory studies indicate that this cancer-fighting ability is even stronger in healthy humans."

The team has tested human cancer-fighting cells from healthy donors against human cervical, prostate and breast cancer cells in the laboratory – with surprisingly good results. The scientists say the anti-tumor response primarily involves granulocytes of the innate immune system, a system known for fighting off infections.

Granulocytes are the most abundant type of white blood cells and can account for as much as 60 percent of total circulating white blood cells in healthy humans. Donors can give granulocytes specifically without losing other components of blood through a process called apheresis that separates granulocytes and returns other blood components back to donors.

In a small study of human volunteers, the scientists found that cancer-killing activity in the granulocytes was highest in people under age 50. They also found that this activity can be lowered by factors such as winter or emotional stress. They said the key to the success for the new therapy is to transfuse sufficient granulocytes from healthy donors while their cancer-killing activities are at their peak level.

For the upcoming study, the researchers are currently recruiting 500 local potential donors who are 50 years old or younger and in good health to have their blood tested. Of those, 100 volunteers with high cancer-killing activity will be asked to donate white blood cells for the study. Cell recipients will include 22 cancer patients who have solid tumors that either didn't respond originally, or no longer respond, to conventional therapies. The study will cost $100,000 per patient receiving therapy, and for many patients (those living in 22 states, including North Carolina) the costs may be covered by their insurance company. There is no cost to donate blood. For general information about insurance coverage of clinical trials, go to the American Cancer Society's web site at www.cancer.org/docroot/ETO/content/ETO_6_2x_State_Laws_Regarding_Clinica....)

For more information about qualifications for donors and participants, go to www.wfubmc.edu/LIFT (Web site will be available the evening of 6/27.) Cancer-killing ability in these cells is highest during the summer, so researchers are hoping to find volunteers who can afford the therapy quickly.

"If the study is effective, it would be another arrow in the quiver of treatments aimed at cancer," said Mark Willingham, M.D., a co-researcher and professor of pathology. "It is based on 10 years of work since the cancer-resistant mouse was first discovered."

Volunteers who are selected as donors – based on the observed potential cancer-fighting activity of their white cells – will complete the apheresis, a two- to three-hour process similar to platelet donation, to collect their granulocytes. The cancer patients will then receive the granulocytes through a transfusion – a safe process that has been used for more than 30 years. Normally, the treatment is used for patients who have antibiotic-resistant infectious diseases. The treatment will be given for three to four consecutive days on an outpatient basis. Up to three donors may be necessary to collect enough blood product for one study participant.

"The difference between our study and the traditional white cell therapy is that we're selecting the healthy donors based on the cancer-killing ability of their white blood cells," said Cui. The scientists are calling the therapy Leukocyte InFusion Therapy (LIFT).

The goal of the phase II study is to determine whether patients can tolerate a sufficient amount of transfused granulocytes for the treatment. Participants will be monitored on a regular basis, and after three months scientists will evaluate whether the treatment results in clear clinical benefits for the patients. If this phase of the study is successful, scientists will expand the study to determine if the treatment is best suited to certain types of cancer.

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