VORTEX2 Tornado Scientists Hit the Road Again

VORTEX2 researchers trailed this Wyoming twister during last spring’s expedition. Credit: Josh Wurman, CSWR

(PhysOrg.com) — In the largest and most ambitious effort ever made to understand tornadoes, more than 100 scientists and 40 support vehicles will hit the road again this spring.

The project, VORTEX2–Verification of the Origins of Rotation in Tornadoes–is in its final season: May 1st through June 15th, 2010.

VORTEX2 is supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Scientists from more than a dozen universities and government and private organizations will take part. International participants are from Italy, Netherlands, United Kingdom, Germany, Canada and Australia.

The questions driving VORTEX2 are simple to ask but hard to answer, says lead scientist Josh Wurman of the Center for Severe Weather Research (CSWR) in Boulder, Colo.

• How, when, and why do tornadoes form?
• Why are some violent and long-lasting while others are weak and short-lived?
• What is the structure of tornadoes?
• How strong are the winds near the ground?
• How exactly do they do damage?
• How can we learn to forecast tornadoes better?

“Current warnings have only a 13-minute average lead time, and a 70 percent false alarm rate,” says Brad Smull, program director in NSF’s Division of Atmospheric and Geospace Sciences. “Can we issue reliable warnings as much as 30, 45 or even 60 minutes ahead of tornado touchdown?”

VORTEX2 scientists hope to find the answers.

They will use a fleet of instruments to literally surround tornadoes and the supercell thunderstorms that form them.

An armada will be deployed, including:

• Ten mobile radars such as the Doppler-on-Wheels (DOW) from CSWR;
• SMART-Radars from the University of Oklahoma;
• the NOXP radar from the National Severe Storms Laboratory (NSSL);
• radars from the University of Massachusetts, the Office of Naval Research and Texas Tech University (TTU);
• 12 mobile mesonet instrumented vehicles from NSSL and CSWR;
• 38 deployable instruments including Sticknets (TTU);
• Tornado-Pods (CSWR);
• 4 disdrometers (University of Colorado (CU);
• weather balloon launching vans (NSSL, NCAR and SUNY-Oswego);
• unmanned aircraft (CU);
• damage survey teams (CSWR, Lyndon State College, NCAR); and
• photogrammetry teams (Lyndon State Univesity, CSWR and NCAR).

“VORTEX2 is fully nomadic with no home base,” says Wurman. Scientists will roam from state to state in the U.S. Plains following severe weather outbreaks.

“When we get wind of a tornado,” says Wurman, “we spring into action.”

More information: VORTEX2 Project: http://www.vortex2.org

Provided by National Science Foundation (news : web)

Sourced and published by Henry Sapiecha 7th June 2010

1899 : Bayer patents aspirin

On this day in 1899, the Imperial Patent Office in Berlin registers Aspirin, the brand name for acetylsalicylic acid, on behalf of the German pharmaceutical company Friedrich Bayer & Co.

Now the most common drug in household medicine cabinets, acetylsalicylic acid was originally made from a chemical found in the bark of willow trees. In its primitive form, the active ingredient, salicin, was used for centuries in folk medicine, beginning in ancient Greece when Hippocrates used it to relieve pain and fever. Known to doctors since the mid-19thcentury, it was used sparingly due to its unpleasant taste and tendency to damage the stomach.

In 1897, Bayer employee Felix Hoffman found a way to create a stable form of the drug that was easier and more pleasant to take. (Some evidence shows that Hoffman’s work was really done by a Jewish chemist, Arthur Eichengrun, whose contributions were covered up during the Nazi era.) After obtaining the patent rights, Bayer began distributing aspirin in powder form to physicians to give to their patients one gram at a time. The brand name came from “a” for acetyl, “spir” from the spirea plant (a source of salicin) and the suffix “in,” commonly used for medications. It quickly became the number-one drug worldwide.
Aspirin was made available in tablet form and without a prescription in 1915. Two years later, when Bayer’s patent expired during the First World War, the company lost the trademark rights to aspirin in various countries. After the United States entered the war against Germany in April 1917, the Alien Property Custodian, a government agency that administers foreign property, seized Bayer’s U.S. assets. Two years later, the Bayer company name and trademarks for the United States and Canada were auctioned off and purchased by Sterling Products Company, later Sterling Winthrop, for $5.3 million.

Bayer became part of IG Farben, the conglomerate of German chemical industries that formed the financial heart of the Nazi regime. After World War II, the Allies split apart IG Farben, and Bayer again emerged as an individual company. Its purchase of Miles Laboratories in 1978 gave it a product line including Alka-Seltzer and Flintstones and One-A-Day Vitamins. In 1994, Bayer bought Sterling Winthrop’s over-the-counter business, gaining back rights to the Bayer name and logo and allowing the company once again to profit from American sales of its most famous product.

Sourced & published by Henry Sapiecha 17th March 2010

Hello Everyone,

Here's your (not so) totally useless fact of the day:

RECORD NUMBER OF WORKABLE INVENTION IDEAS HELD BY THIS SCIENTIST


American inventor Thomas Edison held over 1,500 patents,
including those for the phonograph, kinetoscope, dictaphone,
radio, lightbulb, autographic printer,
and tattoo gun.
Sourced and published by Henry Sapiecha 15th Jan 2010

Robots clear bombs the

wireless way

Dr Jun Jo controls his robots with his mobile phone (Image: Griffith University)

A robot controlled by wireless technology could be used to control bomb disposal and security reconnaissance vehicles, its Australian creator says.

Dr Jun Jo, a senior lecturer at Griffith University, created the prototype of a ‘bomb removal car’ with postgraduate students.

The robotic car is controlled by Bluetooth wireless networking technology, which potentially allows an operator to stay at a safe distance while sending the vehicle into a hazardous situation.

A video camera mounted onto the front of the robot streams images back to the operator.

The operator can then direct the robot to a particular location, identify a suspicious package and scoop it up with an in-built shovel.

“Through a camera I can see what the robot sees and with Bluetooth I can control it within 100 metres,” says Jo.

At 20 centimetres long, the robotic vehicle is about the size of a child’s model car.

“It looks like a toy at this stage, but I want to build a larger one,” he says.

Linking technology

Bluetooth networking is commonly used to link computers and mobiles to peripheral devices. But Jo says there are also many potential applications for Bluetooth and robotics, not just in dangerous situations.

“I am looking at applications in both the security industry and in entertainment,” says Jo, who also runs the university’s robotics and games research laboratory.

“Robotics and games share many qualities in their control methods and algorithms,” he says. “I feel in the near future there will be more
applications for robots in the games industry.”

Robotic football, for example, is a concept that enthusiasts already explore using teams of four-legged players: Sony Aibo robot dogs.

Meanwhile, mobile phone maker Sony Ericsson is exploring using Bluetooth applications for fun, such as a tiny toy car that can be controlled easily by mobile phone.

Recently the company also unveiled a remote-controlled digital camera on wheels called ROB-1. The camera can be steered from a mobile and sends a video stream back to handset, so the owner can decide what pictures to shoot.

Problems with video

There are limitations to the quality of video people can expect from Bluetooth, says Jo.

“One of the drawbacks of Bluetooth is that it is a medium transmission speed. It’s not bad for five frames per second, which would allow you to work out where an object is.”

Jo’s prototype is based on Bluetooth for now, but could be adapted to other current or future networking standards.

“At the moment Bluetooth is one of the most advanced mobile networking technologies, but others will come in time and they could be easily added to such a system,” he says.

The robotic car could be expanded to work with Australia’s 3G or GPRS mobile data networks, which he says could make control possible from distant locations.

Sourced and published by Henry Sapiecha 13th May 2009

TWELVE MINEROLIGISTS FROM ITALY

Specimen Sulphur Crystals

Italian Mineralogist Calendar (YMCCI)

Italian Scientists Calendar

A perpetual calendar celebrating 12 important Italian Scientists that have given significant contributions to the development on Mineralogy. For each one picture, biograpy, original signature, main opera and mineral that has been dedicated to. Plus Plinius and Steno biograpies, two great contributors to mineralogy science.

Contents: Covelli, Scacchi, Struever, Bombicci, Mercalli, Spezia, Sella, Artini, Guglielmini, Biringuccio, D’Achiardi, Zambonini.

Italian language.

Size: 29 x 21 cm.

Some of the scientists are featured below here

Sella Quintino

Stensen Nicolaus

Struever Giovanni

Zambonini Ferruccio

Sourced and published by Henry Sapiecha 22nd March 2009

The importance of keeping research records

KEEP ALERT WITH RECORDS

In the year 1997, Alberto Stampa filed a US provisional patent application claiming a process for making loratadine, the active ingredient in the allergy medication Claritin®. A director and co-founder of the pharmaceutical company Medichem, Stampa knew that a strong intellectual property portfolio was pivotal to the growth of his company.

Unbeknown to Stampa, another Spanish pharmaceutical company, Rolabo S.L., had already filed a patent application claiming the same chemical process, about three months earlier.

In many countries, Rolabo S.L. would have a right to a patent for the invention as they were the first to file a patent application (this is usually referred to as a “first to file” system). In the United States, however, the situation is not as clear cut.

Under US practice, if two or more patent applications are filed for the same invention, the patent will be granted to the application with the earliest date of invention. If the date of invention is in dispute, the patent will typically be awarded to the inventor who can show that they were the first to conceive the invention and reduce it to practice.

KEEP RESEARCH RECORDS

Proof of conception and reduction to practice must be in the form of documentary evidence, preferably as a laboratory notebook. KEEP RECORDS..!It is vital, however, that inventors ensure that their laboratory notebooks meet the stringent US requirements for conception and reduction to practice.

Conception

“Conception” takes place when the inventor has a definite and permanent idea of the complete and operable invention, but has not made a working model. To prove conception, the inventor should provide in the notebook a complete written description of the invention, including drawings (if applicable), ensuring that all aspects covered by the invention are recited. The inventor should also provide a description envisaging how the invention will be put into effect. Entries made in a laboratory workbook should be witnessed and the witness should state that they understood the conception of the invention.

RESEARCH SCIENTISTS

Reduction to practice

“Reduction to practice” is taken when a working model of the invention is made and shown to work. The invention need not reach the stage of perfection required for commercial exploitation. However, the inventor must be able to show that the invention does operate, even if poorly, in its intended functional setting. Preferably, the reduction to practice of an invention should be either directly observed by a witness, or a witness should independently reproduce the results.

Where there is a lack of corroborative evidence to substantiate a claim of actual reduction to practice, reduction to practice of an invention is deemed to have occurred when a patent application is filed.

The dispute between Stampa and Rolabo S.L. came to a head before the United States Court of Appeal for the Federal Circuit. During the proceedings, Stampa submitted several documents in support of his claim to the earlier date of invention; namely that he was in possession of the claimed process for making loratadine before the filing date of Rolabo’s application. The documents submitted included NMR data and inventors’ notebooks.

COURT DELIBERATION ON PATENT

While the Court of Appeal acknowledged that the NMR data showed that Stampa was in possession of the compound loratadine before Rolabo, the notebooks provided no evidence whatsoever that the compound was manufactured by the claimed process. The Court of Appeal also held that the laboratory notebooks had minimal corroborative value because they had not been witnessed! As a result, the Court of Appeal found that Rolabo S.L. had the earlier date of invention and thus retained the right to the patent for this invention.

The Stampa case clearly shows that in the event a laboratory notebook cannot be used as corroborative evidence, the date of the invention may be shifted to the date of filing of the US patent application.

A laboratory notebook is an important document that could play a pivotal role in deciding who has rights to an invention in the United States. To ensure that the entries in a laboratory notebook have good corroborative value, all entries in a notebook should:

WITNESS THE RECORDS DAILY

1. Clearly describe conception and reduction to practice
2. Be signed by the researcher on a daily basis
3. Be witnessed by another party who understands the work but who would not be considered an inventor; and
4. Demonstrate that reasonable diligence was carried out in moving from conception to reduction in practice.
5. Dr Alex Tzanidis
6. is an Associate of Phillips Ormonde & Fitzpatrick, patent & trade mark attorneys, specialising in the field of biotechnology.
7. The information contained in this article is not legal advice. If you do have a legal enquiry you should talk to a Solicitor or Trade Mark Attorney before making a decision about what to do
8. Sourced from anthill by Henry Sapiecha Feb 2009
   

Iran continues to get high-tech equipment

Iran dupes US sanctions

WASHINGTON (UPI) — Iran has been able to evade U.S. attempts to bar imports of sophisticated technology through front companies and use of the Internet, The Washington Post said.

A report by the Institute for Science and Security and Justice Department says Iran has acquired Global Positioning devices along with circuit boards and software for improvised explosive devices in the past two years. They are on the list of items banned from export to Iran.

The Bush administration approved sanctions against Iranian front companies in Dubai in 2006. But officials say that after a brief disruption in the flow of high-tech equipment, Iran found other routes.

U.S. companies are unwittingly supplying Iran, not realizing that the apparent buyers are fronts.

“The schemes are so elaborate, even the most scrupulous companies can be deceived,” said David Albright, ISIS president and one of the authors of the study.

Article by United Press International

Published by Henry Sapiecha   Jan – 2009