GLIMPSES OF THE FUTURE (With 2010 Holiday Greetings!)
A monthly digest of technologies, developments and trends that will shape our lives. (If you would prefer not to receive these digests, flip back 'NO THANKS' and you will be removed from the list).

Satellite Imagery Helps Colombian Fishermen Catch 40% More Fish

Fishermen in Colombia are now able to tap into the latest satellite information to chase shoals of fish in their depleted fishing grounds.

Using satellites from NASA and the European Space Agency, researchers from the National University of Colombia identified chlorophyll hotspots, which indicate the presence of the phytoplankton that some fish feed on, and a range of surface temperatures .

The technology allows researchers to find and study promising fishing areas, but it may also help fishermen to spend less time and money looking for fish. Fisherman caught 40 per cent more fish in initial trials, according to the researchers.

This all sounds wonderful for the low-intensity, subsistence-based fishing practiced by native Colombian fishermen, but what would be the effect on our over-fished world fish stocks if it is applied to the industrial-scale fishing practiced by the developed nations? (Perhaps it already is.)

'4SKINS' Underwear Neutralises The Effects of Flatulence

In the true spirit of the holiday season, the makers of the Better Marriage Blanket (see Glimpses June 2010) have refined their anti-fart technology to produce underpants for men and women that neutralise odours produced by flatulence.

The new underwear is made from odour absorbing fabric that soaks up offensive gases but unlike the Better Marriage Blanket, which traps 'flatulence molecules' in a layer of activated carbon, the repulsively-named 4SKINS underwear uses Neutralizer technology from California-based company, Nano-Tex, which builds 'odour-eliminating nanotechnology' into the fabric’s individual fibres. This technology attracts, isolates and neutralizes odours on the fabric as well as any passing through.

The underpants cost between US$24 and $35 dollars per pair and, if you rush, you may just be able to get your hands on that perfect holiday gift.

First Jet Flight Powered By Jatropha Completed Successfully

Brazil’s largest airline, TAM Airlines, working together with Airbus, has successfully conducted the first Jatropha-based biofuel flight in Latin America. Airbus claims the biofuel could help reduce the aviation sector’s overall carbon footprint by up to 80 percent.

Following last year’s Aviation & Environment Summit, the aviation industry committed itself to a self-imposed CO2 reduction target of neutral growth from 2020, working towards a 50 percent net CO2 reduction on 2005 emissions by 2050.

Although the energy use – and, as a result, greenhouse gas emissions – of the aviation sector (9 percent of the transportation sector in 2007) is far overshadowed by the energy use of passenger vehicles, such as cars and light-duty trucks (60.4 percent), such a reduction would have a major impact on greenhouse gas emissions.

And starting next April, a Lufthansa Airbus A321 aircraft making the daily flight between Hamburg and Frankfurt will be running partially on biofuel. The airline will trial the biofuel blend, made of a 50/50 mixture of kerosene and hydrotreated vegetable oil, in one of the plane’s engines for six months. It’s part of the Lufthansa-led burnFAIR project, which is studying the long term effects of sustainable biofuels on aircraft performance. Lufthansa claims to be the first airline to conduct a long-term trial using biofuel during flight operations.

The biofuel comes from Finland-based Neste Oil, and its feedstock is grown under sustainable-verified conditions to ensure it doesn’t compete with food crops or forests for land and water. When consumed, the fuel should emit no more carbon dioxide than what its feedstock consumed while growing.

O3b Raises Over $1 Billion To Bring Internet To Developing World

Satellite based internet provider, O3b Networks says that it has secured the final funding round before its service launch. The company has raised a total of US$ 1.2 billion from a group of investors and banks. This will see the company through to the launch of its first satellites which will provide internet connectivity between developing markets and the global internet infrastructure.

The additional equity is being provided by a group of existing shareholders that includes Google, North Bridge Venture Partners and Allen & Company, with SES, Liberty Global and HSBC Principal Investments taking the leading role. New investors include the Development Bank of Southern Africa, Sofina and Satya Capital. With this final round of funding, SES will become the largest minority shareholder of O3b Networks and will provide in-kind services, including commercial and engineering expertise.

Within a decade most of us will have our DNA decoded - and the benefits will be immense.

Today the process of genome screening is laborious and expensive but scientists from Imperial College London are developing technology that could ultimately sequence a person’s genome in mere minutes, at a fraction of the cost of current commercial techniques.

The researchers have patented an early prototype technology that they believe could lead to an ultra-fast commercial DNA sequencing tool within ten years. Their work is described in a study published this month in the journal Nano Letters and it is supported by the Wellcome Trust Translational Award and the Corrigan Foundation.

The research suggests that scientists could eventually sequence an entire genome in a single lab procedure, whereas at present it can only be sequenced after being broken into pieces in a highly complex and time-consuming process. Fast and inexpensive genome sequencing could allow ordinary people to unlock the secrets of their own DNA, revealing their personal susceptibility to diseases such as Alzheimer’s, diabetes and cancer. Medical professionals are already using genome sequencing to understand population-wide health issues and research ways to tailor individualised treatments or preventions.

New Technique Allows 100% Of Household Plastic To Be Recycled

Today, only about 12 per cent of plastic sent to waste recovery centres actually gets recycled. Because of problems such as glued-on paper labels, or different types of plastic being combined in one product, the rest of it goes to the landfill or is burnt as fuel. Now scientists at Warwick University in the UK have now devised a system that could recycle 100 percent of household plastic.

The Warwick system is based around a unit that utilizes pyrolysis within a fluidised bed reactor. Pyrolysis is the use of heat in the absence of oxygen for the decomposition of materials, while fluidised bed reactors pass a gas or liquid through solid granular material at high velocity, causing it to behave like a liquid.

The researchers shovelled a wide variety of mixed plastics into the reactor, which were then broken down into useful elements that could be retrieved (in some cases) through distillation. Those elements included wax, which could be used a lubricant; original monomers such as styrene, that could be used to make new polystyrene; terephthalic acid, which could be repurposed in PET plastic products; methylmetacrylate, that could be used to produce acrylic sheets; and carbon, which could be used as Carbon Black in paint pigments and tires. The char left over at the end of the process could reportedly also be sold as activated carbon.

Harvard Scientists Claim To Achieve 'Reverse Ageing' In Mice

Harvard scientists claim to have discovered that by controlling certain genetic processes in mice, they can not only slow down the aging process, but 'dramatically' reverse it throughout the body. It's a massive discovery potentially, but it won't be able to be used in humans yet without some pretty scary consequences.

The Harvard study focused on part of the cell division process called 'telomere shortening'. If you imagine a chromosome as an X-shaped unit of DNA, the telomeres are the little caps at the end of each strand.

As cells divide, their DNA splits in half to form two new cells – but a bit of genetic information is lost at the end of each strand with each division.

While this study was a huge step forward in our understanding of how telomeres and telomerase impact the aging process, there's a big issue preventing this sort of treatment from going straight into human testing.

Mice produce telomerase all throughout their short lives, but the enzyme is switched off in adult humans with our longer life spans, because when our cells are allowed to divide and replicate unchecked, they have a nasty habit of developing into cancers.

Solar Sahara Project Aims To Produce '50% Of World Electricity Needs'

Universities in Japan and Algeria have teamed up on a project that aims to solve the world’s energy problems. Called the Sahara Solar Breeder Project, the plan is to build manufacturing plants around the Sahara Desert and extract silica from sand to make solar panels, which will then be used to build solar power plants in the desert.

The power generated by the initial plant or plants would be used to 'breed' more silicon manufacturing and solar power plants, which will in turn be used to breed more again, and so on. The ultimate goal is to build enough plants to provide 50 percent of the world’s electricity by 2050, which would be delivered via a global superconducting supergrid.

www.rayhammond.com

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