Invention Promises to Change the ,,Small Satellites Are Powered

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Invention Promises to Change the Way
Small Satellites Are Powered
An invention developed by The Aerospace Corporation and recently patented -- the PowerSphere Nanosatellite -- could significantly enhance the way nanosatellites are powered while eliminating some technical challenges that have evolved with the miniaturization of satellite technology.

In September a research team led by Edward Simburger received the patent for the deployable geodesic solar-panel array consisting of connecting pentagon- and hexagon-shaped panels that are solar-energy-collecting cells.

Folded in a flat stack at either end of a strut attached to the payload, the panels of two halves of the PowerSphere unfurl during deployment, creating two hemispheres that interlock and encase the satellite.

Once deployed the PowerSphere becomes a 360-degree solar array that collects "a constant amount of electric power regardless of its attitude relative to the sun," Simburger said. "It eliminates the problem of providing power to nanosatellites with limited surface 'real estate.'"

The invention, co-developed by David Hinkley, Ernest Robinson, Jon Osborn and David Gilmore, also eliminates from small satellites the excess weight and bulk of solar panels and the accompanying attitude-control apparatus required to continually point them in the direction of the sun.

An added advantage, according to Simburger, is that the PowerSphere provides a controlled thermal environment for the nanosatellite electronics and battery it encases, which are subjected to extreme temperatures in space.

"The PowerSphere may find future use in providing power and thermal control for small satellites weighing from under one kilogram (one-half pound) to 60 kilograms (132 pounds)," Simburger added.

Geometry for Power
The development of the PowerSphere began in 1998, when Simburger began investigating novel methods for providing power to picosatellites, the four-by-three-by-one inch, half-pound miniatures developed by The Aerospace Corporation with Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency funding.

"I was exploring various geometries for a solar array for the picosatellites using amorphous silicon solar cells that have extremely low mass and are very flexible," he said.

A rough sketch of a Mars rover inspired Simburger to explore a spherical shape for a solar array because "the rover used three inflatable spheres as tires and a fourth sphere on an antenna mast. The fourth sphere could be a solar array that would provide power to the rover."

That prototype inflatable Mars rover eventually designed for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory ultimately used a solar array that was a deployable parasol, "but I contacted the company that designed that prototype, ILC Dover, and asked them to develop a design for an inflatable sphere for deploying an array consisting of these amorphous silicon solar cells," Simburger said.

Refining the Concept
At that point Simburger imagined the model solar array would be spherical in shape and tethered to the satellite. Testing on thermal control aspects, as well as the manner in which the solar cells of the spherical array were wired together, led the team to refine the concept even further.

"The solution to the difficulties of wiring the solar cells together was to connect them directly to the spacecraft power bus with individual DC-DC converters," Simburger said, a concept that brought the PowerSphere one step closer to encasing its payload.

Simburger received a patent in October 2000 for the method of connecting the solar cells mounted on the spherical array structure.

To verify the operation of his connection scheme, Simburger had the Aerospace machine shop fabricate a two-foot-diameter "buckeyball," which was the size he calculated would be required to produce enough power for a small satellite in low Earth orbit.

At the same time, Hinkley, lead design engineer for the picosatellites, had been working with Gilmore to come up with a thermal design for the tiny picosats.

"David Gilmore told me earlier that the interior space of the PowerSphere would provide a suitable thermal environment for the battery that would power the picosatellites during eclipse," Simburger said.

Energy, Protection
The concept quickly moved from a tethered spherical array to an array that would serve the dual purpose of collecting energy regardless of attitude toward the sun and serving as the protective thermal shell for the nanosatellite. A patent for this configuration was granted last month.

The team was next challenged to devise a deployment scheme for the PowerSphere from a flat stack of hexagon- and pentagon-shaped panels.

Simburger worked with cut-out construction cardboard hexagons and pentagons to devise a workable scheme.

Another patent for the deployment method is pending with the U.S. patent office.

The team has received funding on a proposal in response to NASA's Cross Enterprise Research Announcement, issued in March.

Aerospace, the prime contractor on the project, is working with subcontractors ILC Dover for the design and fabrication of a deployable structure and with Lockheed Martin, which will create the wiring harness for a development model of the PowerSphere.

"The program is on track to complete a preliminary design for the PowerSphere by June 2002," Simburger said.

Contract milestones call for completion of an engineering development model by June 2003 and an engineering development unit by June 2004.

Other References Hinkley et al, "A Mechanical Deployment Structure for the Powersphere Concept," Energy Conversion Conference and Exhibit (IECEC) 35th Intersociety, vol. 1, (2000), pp. 659-669.

Technorati : Invention Promises to Change the Way Small Satellites Are Powered

NASA MESSENGER Mission News: Priming Instruments to Map Mercury's Crust

NASA MESSENGER Mission News: Priming Instruments to Map Mercury's Crust

Understanding if ice exists on the surface of Mercury, and if so what types, will mark an important component of the investigations by the MESSENGER spacecraft about the origin and evolution of the solar system's inner planets. This month, instrument engineers at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md., turned on the Neutron Spectrometer (NS)-one of several sensors aboard MESSENGER that will be key to sorting out the mystery of Mercury's surface.

The NS will collect data about the composition of the uppermost tens of centimeters of Mercury's crust by measuring the numbers and energies of neutrons that reach the MESSENGER probe as it passes near the planet. The NS together with a gamma ray sensor make up the Gamma-Ray and Neutron Spectrometer (GRNS) instrument.

The NS will map variations in the fast, thermal, and epithermal neutrons Mercury's surface emits when struck by cosmic rays. "Fast" neutrons shoot directly into space; others collide with neighboring atoms in the crust before escaping. If a neutron collides with a small atom (like hydrogen), it will lose energy and be detected as a slow (or thermal) neutron. Scientists can look at the ratio of thermal to epithermal (slightly faster) neutrons across Mercury's surface to estimate the amount of hydrogen-possibly locked up in water molecules-and other elements.

Subtracting the Background Noise

APL's Edgar Rhodes, an instrument scientist on the MESSENGER mission, says the current NS calibration will "tweak the electronic thresholds and voltages for the detectors to assure that the most interesting parts of the neutron spectra are within the energy ranges of the instrument before the upcoming second Venus flyby on June 5."

In space, the spacecraft is bombarded continuously from all directions by galactic cosmic rays, high-energy particles (mostly protons) thought to originate from remnants of supernovae in our galaxy, explains APL's John Goldsten, the GRNS instrument engineer.

"On Earth, we are protected from these penetrating rays by our atmosphere; but in the vacuum of space they collide directly with spacecraft materials, smashing into atomic nuclei, and sending off energetic neutrons," he says. "These energetic neutrons, in turn, collide with other atoms and produce a host of lower-energy neutrons and gamma rays. These signals pose a serious background in the instrument that needs to be 'subtracted out' from the total signal measured near a planet. After all, it's the composition of the planet and not the spacecraft we are trying to measure."

To make matters more difficult, Goldsten adds, some components of this induced spacecraft background build up over time, "and so it is important to make periodic measurements to characterize this background to perform a proper analysis and interpretation of the science data."

Searching for Solar Neutrons

The NS will remain on during most of MESSENGER's cruise phase and return data from Venus flyby 2 in June, three Mercury flybys in 2008 and 2009, and one Earth year in Mercury orbit starting in 2011.

The NS is a low-power instrument that can safely be powered on indefinitely, Goldsten says. "We plan to take special advantage of the unique measurements the NS can produce as it journeys through the inner solar system; a region of space never before studied with this type of instrument."

"Looking for the presence of energetic neutrons streaming away from the Sun during solar flares is of particular scientific interest to physicists trying to model and understand the underlying mechanisms of solar activity," he continues. "Solar neutrons are very difficult to observe from Earth because these sub-atomic particles by themselves-not bound inside an atomic nucleus-are not stable and decay away in about ten minutes, so only the most energetic (fastest moving) neutrons reach Earth before disintegrating, and these are very few. But as the MESSENGER spacecraft journeys closer to the Sun and gets inside the orbit of Venus, the likelihood of observing solar neutrons increases dramatically because we get a chance to capture them before they can decay away."

Another reason to operate the NS during the long cruise to Mercury is to help the Interplanetary Network of satellites detect and locate Gamma Ray Bursts-the most energetic events known in the Universe-which produce monstrous flashes of gamma rays that appear in the sky at random times and from random locations.

"Detecting these gamma ray bursts simultaneously at distant spacecraft helps to triangulate their direction so that observatories can quickly aim powerful telescopes to study the optical counterpart or 'afterglow' of these colossal events, hypothesized to mark the collapse of stars into black holes or the collision of super dense neutron stars," Goldsten says. "While the NS is optimized to detect neutrons, gamma rays appear as a steady background signal, so any sudden changes in this background signal can be used as a gamma-ray burst monitor. Gamma-ray bursts are typically detected about once a day, and no two are exactly alike; some last milliseconds, while others may continue for minutes."

From an engineering point of view, the GRNS is a flexible instrument with many controls and settings that can be adjusted remotely via commands to the spacecraft. "This flexibility is important as we cannot easily simulate the galactic cosmic ray environment on the ground," Goldsten says. "Optimizing the in-flight settings is usually an iterative process where we make small changes and then analyze the results. We then collect long-term data with the final settings to establish the instrument baseline prior to an encounter such as the upcoming Venus flyby."

http://www.windows.ucar.edu/tour/link=/mercury/Interior_Surface/Structure/structure_overview.html

Technorati : NASA MESSENGER Mission News: Priming Instruments to Map Mercury's Crust

From Fresh Ideas and Better Steel, Safer Bridges

From Fresh Ideas and Better Steel, Safer Bridges

The collapse of the eight-lane steel-deck truss bridge last week in Minneapolis focused attention on deficiencies in many older spans around the nation. Despite these troubles, engineers say, new ideas and technologies are making bridges safer — not to mention longer and more beautiful — than they have ever been.
Skip to next paragraph RelatedTimes Topics: Bridge DisastersEnlarge This Image Thomas Bender/Sarasota Herald-TribuneThe bridge has a cable-stayed mainspan. The advances are founded on better steel and concrete, smarter rules and designs and bursts of creativity that turn raw materials into works of art.
“It’s usually a case of slow and steady progress,” said Henry Petroski, a professor of history and civil engineering at Duke University. But past innovations, he said, suggest that the field has gone through periods of rapid progress and may do so again. Giant spans of steel and concrete may one day soar across the Strait of Gibraltar and the Bering Sea, uniting Africa and Europe, Asia and the Americas.
Today’s advances develop against a backdrop of decay as the nation’s aging bridges buckle under the strain of poor upkeep and steadily increasing traffic. In this decade, at least six have collapsed, often after being hit by trucks or boats. The failures have taken dozens of lives.
Experts say part of the problem is poor design, apparently a contributing factor in the Minneapolis collapse.
Another difficulty, Dr. Petroski said, is that America is in some ways a victim of its own early innovation. Early designers created the world’s most comprehensive system of bridges. Many spans set records, but they are now antiques.
Dr. Petroski said much of the progress in bridge design and construction is occurring in China and other countries undergoing rapid growth, not in developed nations with fewer opportunities for new construction. He said he recently traveled to China and saw many “world class bridges” going up on the Yangtze River, with some quite striking in design and “approaching record spans.”
“If there’s good news,” Dr. Petroski said, “it’s in the Far East.”
China is building thousands of bridges every year.
In the United States, many triumphs of bridge building occurred in the late 1800s and early 1900s. In 1874, the Eads Bridge opened over the Mississippi at St. Louis to become the world’s longest arch bridge. It was the first use of steel as a main structural element, making possible its extremely long arches.
The pace of innovation accelerated in 1883 with the opening of the Brooklyn Bridge over the East River. It was the world’s longest suspension bridge and the first hung from steel wires.
In 1931, records shattered again with the opening over the Hudson River of what became known as the George Washington Bridge. The elegant main span of the suspension bridge was the world’s longest, nearly twice the nearest rival.
The secret of its success lay in a novel idea, making the roadway deck much thinner and lighter, allowing the central span to be unusually long and graceful.
The theory worked over the Hudson, but it was a disaster elsewhere. In 1940, a bridge over the Tacoma Narrows in Washington, of the same design but with an even lighter deck, collapsed in high winds. No one died because worried officials had closed it earlier that day.
The biggest risk for bridges turned out to be not innovation but aging and increasing loads. In 1967, the Silver Bridge over the Ohio River, nearly 40 years old, collapsed, killing 46 people. It was one of the deadliest failures. The span had been designed for Model T Fords, but the weight of automobiles had more than tripled in the ensuing decades. The disaster prompted a national program of regular inspections, especially of the 1,100 highway bridges designed for Model Ts.
Today, innovation is again accelerating. Increasingly, designers use high-performance steels that are unusually strong and tough. Among other factors, their strength allows for the creation of spans of great length and beauty that are also more durable.
“They give you lots of building and design options that we didn’t have 20 years ago,” said Conn Abnee, executive director of the National Steel Bridge Alliance, an industry group based in Chicago.
The nation, he added, has some 400 bridges that use high-performance steel.
In 2000, a graceful bridge made from the superstrong material opened in Pennsylvania over the Allegheny River, its main span more than a football field long.
Designers and engineers are also starting to make use of a new generation of highly fluid concretes that flow better into constricted spaces. M. Myint Lwin, director of bridge technology at the Federal Highway Administration, recently said that the materials had “extraordinary potential for improving the quality of the finished product.”
Colin MacDougall, a professor of civil engineering at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, said many advances in bridge design centered on subtle changes in how the elements are assembled. For instance, researchers are developing new recommendations for where to weld, lessening the risks of fatigue and cracks.
“A lot of the problems for old bridges are not in the strength of the steel, but how things are put together,” he said. “It comes down to design.”
A final improvement is forcing improvement whether designers like it or not. In October, the Federal Highway Administration will begin enforcing new rules for bridge design meant to make new structures more efficient, more reliable, safer and longer lasting.
Among other improvements, the rules should produce bridges better able to withstand peak traffic loads and brutal weather, as well as extreme events like ship collisions and earthquakes.
“We’re not switching because existing bridges are going to fall down,” said Kelley C. Rehm, program manager for bridges and structures at the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, which wrote the new rules. But the regulations, she said, will produce “a more reliable way of designing a bridge.”

Google's war with Microsoft

a long article in MIT Tech Review on Google's "war with Microsoft":

Google's defeat is not a foregone conclusion. Indeed, if it does everything right, it could become an enormously powerful and profitable company, representing the most serious challenge Microsoft has faced since the Apple Macintosh. But if Microsoft gets serious about search -- and there is every reason to believe that it will -- Google will need brilliant strategy and flawless execution simply to survive.

What should Google do? Google should understand that it faces an architecture war and act accordingly. Its most urgent task must be to turn its website into a major platform, as [Amazon has] already done.

Google should first create APIs for Web search services and make sure they become the industry standard. Second, it should spread those standards and APIs, through some combination of technology licensing, alliances, and software products, over all of the major server software platforms, in order to cover the dark Web and the enterprise market.

The Microsoft giant is awake, says Charles, and it's hungering for a Google snack.

The impressive Google cluster is one part of Google's competitive advantage. I'm curious to see if Google does start offering better web services APIs. I'd certainly love to get my hands on that juicy cluster.

But will Google lose the search war if it doesn't offer better web service APIs? I doubt it.

Google has an impressive track record of innovation on its own. Amazon has web services APIs because it is seeking outside developers to boost innovation. Yahoo is considering them for similar reasons. But it's not clear Google has a problem with innovation. Google's biggest problem seems to be getting all the innovations available internally out the door and available to the public.

Furthermore, Google's lifeblood is advertising. Google is in the middle of building an advertising revolution. I think it is the AdSense revolution that will empower small websites and businesses, wrapping them around Google, not a software API into Google's infrastructure.

That being said, I do expect Google to launch services that allow users to further exploit the power of the Google cluster. But I expect these to be finished services like GMail that target end users, not web services targeting developers.

Visual soft

coming soon

Silicon nanocrystal quantum effect found

U.S. Department of Energy scientists reported the discovery of a unique quantum physics effect in nanocrystals.

The researchers at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, in collaboration with scientists at Innovalight Inc., discovered what they said is a new and important effect called Multiple Exciton Generation.

The effect occurs efficiently in silicon nanocrystals, resulting in the formation of more than one electron per absorbed photon, the scientists reported.

Until the new discovery, MEG had been reported during the past two years to occur only in nanocrystals -- also called quantum dots -- of semiconductor materials that are not presently used in commercial solar cells, and which contained environmentally harmful materials such as lead.

The new finding might lead to the application of MEG for greatly enhancing the conversion efficiency of solar cells based on silicon. That would represent a key step toward making solar energy more cost-competitive with conventional power sources, the researchers said.

The research is detailed in the on-line version of the American Chemical Society's Nano Letters Journal.

Technorati : Silicon nanocrystal quantum effect found

LHC- My Space & Earth: Large Hadron Collider (LHC) -Supercollisions on the horizon?

LHC- My Space & Earth: Large Hadron Collider (LHC) -Supercollisions on the horizon?

LHC- My Space & Earth: Nanotech used to make flexible sensors

LHC- My Space & Earth: Nanotech used to make flexible sensors

LHC- My Space & Earth: Ovarian Tissue Successfully Transplanted

LHC- My Space & Earth: Ovarian Tissue Successfully Transplanted

Nanotech used to make flexible sensors

U.S. Department of Energy scientists used nanotechnology to create flexible sensors for use in fuel cells designed for hydrogen-powered vehicles.
In comparison with previously designed hydrogen sensors, which are rigid and use expensive pure palladium, the new sensors developed at the Argonne National Laboratory are flexible and use single-walled carbon nanotubes to improve efficiency and reduce cost. The development is expected to help to ensure economical benefits as well as environmental and societal safety, researchers said.
The new sensing devices, developed by Yugang Sun and H. Hau Wang, exhibit excellent sensing performance in terms of high sensitivity, fast response time and quick recovery, scientists said. And the use of plastic sheets reduces their overall weight and increases their mechanical flexibility and shock resistance, Sun added.
The sensors can be wrapped around curved surfaces, which proves useful in many applications in vehicles, aircraft and portable electronics.

More from Argonne National Laboratory

flexible sensors

Nanotechnology helps scientists make bendy sensors for hydrogen vehicles
ARGONNE, Ill. (July 31, 2007) — In recent years, Americans have been intrigued by the promise of hydrogen-powered vehicles. But experts have judged that several technology problems must be resolved before they are more than a novelty.
Recently, scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory have used their insights into nanomaterials to create bendy hydrogen sensors, which are at the heart of hydrogen fuel cells used in hydrogen vehicles.
In comparison to previously designed hydrogen sensors, which are rigid and use expensive, pure palladium, the new sensors are bendy and use single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) to improve efficiency and reduce cost. The development of these hydrogen sensors will help to ensure economical, environmental and societal safety, as the nation is realizing the potential for a more hydrogen-based economy.
Yugang Sun and H. Hau Wang, researchers in Argonne's Center for Nanoscale Materials and Materials Science Division, respectively, fabricated the new sensing devices using a two-step process separated by high and low temperatures. First, at around 900 degrees C, researchers grow SWNTs on a silicon substrate using chemical vapor deposition. Then, researchers transfer the SWNTs onto a plastic substrate at temperatures lower than 150 degrees C using a technique called dry transfer printing.
This precise process is what allows the film of nanotubes to form on the plastic, after which the palladium nanoparticles can be deposited on the SWNTs to make the sensors. The palladium nanoparticles play an important role in increasing the interaction between hydrogen and the SWNTs to enhance the change of resistance of the device when it is exposed to hydrogen molecules.
According to Sun, these sensors exhibit excellent sensing performance in terms of high sensitivity, fast response time and quick recovery, and the use of plastic sheets reduces their overall weight and increases their mechanical flexibility and shock resistance. The sensors are also able to be wrapped around curved surfaces, and this proves useful in many applications, notably in vehicles, aircraft and portable electronics.
“The leakage of hydrogen caused by tiny pinholes in the pipe of a space shuttle, for example, could not be easily detected by individual rigid detectors because the locations of pinholes are not predetermined,” said Sun. “However, laminating a dense array of flexible sensors on the surfaces of the pipe can detect any hydrogen leakage prior to diffusion to alert control units to take action.”
Flexible hydrogen sensors show a change of 75 percent in their resistance when exposed to hydrogen at a concentration of 0.05 percent in air. The devices can detect the presence of 1 percent hydrogen at room temperature in 3 seconds. Even after bending—with a bending radius of approximately 7.5 mm—and relaxing 2,000 times, the devices still perform with as much effectiveness.
With employees from more than 60 nations, Argonne National Laboratory brings the world's brightest scientists and engineers together to find exciting and creative new solutions to pressing national problems in science and technology. The nation's first national laboratory, Argonne conducts leading-edge basic and applied scientific research in virtually every scientific discipline. Argonne researchers work closely with researchers from hundreds of companies, universities, and federal, state and municipal agencies to help them solve their specific problems, advance America 's scientific leadership and prepare the nation for a better future. Argonne is managed by UChicago Argonne, LLC for the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science.

Source:http://www.anl.gov/Media_Center/News/2007/news070731.html

By www.24hoursnews.blogspot.com

Large Hadron Collider (LHC) -Supercollisions on the horizon?

The project staggers the imagination: a machine that would stretch 20 miles through the bedrock 400 feet beneath Kane, DuPage and perhaps Will Counties. It could help physicists discover mysterious forces of the universe and new dimensions in the fabric of space and time.
But there are other mysteries to resolve before the first spade is turned for a proposed, multibillion-dollar International Linear Collider scientists hope to center under Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory's Batavia campus.
What would the neighbors think about subatomic particles being fired at nearly the speed of light under west suburban homes, back-yard pools and cornfields? And how to accommodate any criticisms in advance and bring folks onboard?
There's no guarantee the collider -- which experts think could be one of the century's great scientific leaps forward -- will be built. Or that it'll be built in Illinois. Even in the best-case scenario, it will be more than a decade before the first particles fly.
But officials are planning ahead, making sure that what happened about 20 years ago -- when criticism from residents helped doom Fermilab's quest to land a superconducting supercollider -- doesn't happen again.
Fermilab has organized a 24-member ILC Citizens' Task Force to help it plan. The Department of Energy facility has included a wide range of volunteers, from village trustees to the same activists who fought Fermilab's proposed supercollider in the 1980s.
Members are asking questions, offering suggestions and learning about the project firsthand from some of the world's leading physicists and engineers. Their job is to draw up recommendations for the project by early next year so the changes can be incorporated into the design.
All this for an international project Europe and Japan might also compete for and that wouldn't be finished until 2019 at the earliest -- and could take until 2030. The project would employ the equivalent of 2,000 people worldwide during each of the seven years the machine is being built.
If completed, however, the machine would assert Fermilab's position on the frontier of science for decades, employing physicists, engineers and others at the lab after its Tevatron particle accelerator's scheduled shutdown in 2009.
But first, Fermilab wants to win over the neighbors.
In a recent meeting, Dan Lobbes, a task-force member and director of land preservation with the Conservation Foundation, said Fermilab had better prepare itself to answer questions such as, "'Will my kids and my dog get radiated?' Or, 'How will we know we'll get treated fairly?' Or, 'Do we get money if the thing goes under my house?'"
Fermilab officials seem to delight in such bruising questions, nodding and scribbling notes when the interrogation gets tough. They genuinely want to be guided by the public, they say, and it is better to get everything out in the open now -- with informed citizens, not folks spooked by 1950s Godzilla scenarios.
"It's just openness," said Craig Jones, who fought the supercollider and now serves on the task force. "That's what we're talking about -- establishing trust, and treating you like you're something other than some bumpkin from Kane County."
The proposed linear collider could help scientists overcome humankind's humbling ignorance of much of the cosmos. Physicists can only account for 5 percent of the components of the universe. The remaining 95 percent are believed to be dark matter and dark energy, which are invisible but can be detected in the mass and rotational speed of galaxies and galaxy clusters.
The collider would hurl billions of electrons and their antiparticles -- positrons -- toward each other at nearly the speed of light, Fermilab said. The collisions would create new particles that could offer hints about the nature and origin of the universe.
"It's a little bit mind-boggling that to study the smallest particles in the universe, you need the largest machines that mankind has ever built," said Kurt Riesselmann, a Fermilab spokesman.
But there is the problem of where to park a machine that would extend miles beyond the 6,800-acre lab campus.
The collider is so vast and so expensive -- rough estimates start at $6.7 billion -- no single government could afford to build it, Riesselmann said.
An international team is designing it, and the cash would come from many countries. A similar collaboration led to the Geneva-based CERN particle physics laboratory's Large Hadron Collider, scheduled to start up in May 2008.
If Fermilab is chosen for the new collider, it could stir up a hornet's nest of local planning issues. Contractors would bore 44 miles of tunnel -- including a parallel service tunnel -- with a diameter of 15 feet or greater. Thirteen access shafts would be spaced every few miles, and 92 new buildings would have to be built above ground, roughly a third of them off-campus on land Fermilab would acquire.

Task-force member John Carlson of Geneva wanted to know how much blasting would be required."In the Deep Tunnel project, there was a lot of blasting in Chicago, broken windows and that sort of thing," he said. "So I think the objection of the communities will be in the blasting phase."Vic Kuchler, a Fermilab staff member who is part of the collider's global design effort, said most of the tunnels would be drilled, but some blasting would be necessary to create underground rooms and alcoves

Fermilab officials said the machine would meet environmental standards on radiation and other matters. "It's not a nuclear reactor or anything like that," said Riesselmann. The particle collision point would be on Fermilab property, and a power failure would harmlessly shut down the collider, as it does the lab's Tevatron.The surface work could prove more problematic. Fermilab would have to build mini-campuses of an undetermined size where the shafts emerge.Jones, a St. Charles resident who opposed the supercollider in the late 1980s, said the approach now is a far cry from those days. Officials then didn't involve property owners during the design, he said, and were condescending to those who questioned the project.A retired pilot, Jones wrote and distributed a paper disputing the state's claims about the jobs that project would create. He and other opponents undermined it further by gathering 18,000 signatures in opposition.Texas ended up winning the supercollider project, which was later canceled by Congress amid cost overruns.This time, Jones said, Fermilab is going out of its way to listen to citizens. Jones sees his task as not to become an advocate for the linear collider, but to ensure a fair process for the communities it passes under."Am I personally interested in that kind of science?" Jones said. "As a matter of fact, I am. I'm very interested. But I don't want to see people get squashed, having family farms taken and being treated badly, just for the sake of science that I may like."

Source:http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chicago/chi-fermi_bd05aug05,1,768298.story?page=2

By www.24hoursnews.blogspot.com

Large Hadron Collider (LHC) (primary research/costs/upgrades)

Research

When in operation, about seven thousand scientists from eighty countries will have access to the LHC, the largest national contingent (seven hundred) being from the United States. Physicists hope to use the collider to enhance their ability to answer the following questions:

Is the popular Higgs mechanism for generating elementary particle masses in the Standard Model violated? If not, how many Higgs bosons are there, and what are their masses?

Will the more precise measurements of the masses of baryons continue to be mutually consistent within the Standard Model?

Do particles have supersymmetric ("SUSY") partners?

Why are there apparent violations of the symmetry between matter and antimatter?

Are there extra dimensions, as predicted by various models inspired by string theory, and can we "see" them?

What is the nature of dark matter and dark energy?

Why is gravity so many orders of magnitude weaker than the other three fundamental forces?

LHC as an ion collider

The LHC physics program is mainly based on proton-proton collisions. However, shorter running periods, typically one month per year, with heavy-ion collisions are included in the programme. While lighter ions are considered as well, the baseline scheme deals with lead (Pb) ions.This will allow an advancement in the experimental programme currently in progress at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC).

LHC proposed upgrade

After some years of running, any particle physics experiment typically begins to suffer from diminishing returns. The way around the diminishing returns is to upgrade the experiment, either in energy or in luminosity.
A luminosity upgrade of the LHC, called the Super LHC, has been proposed, to be made after ten years of LHC operation. The optimal path for the LHC luminosity upgrade includes an increase in the beam current (i.e., the number of protons in the beams) and the modification of the two high luminosity interaction regions, ATLAS and CMS. To achieve these increases, the energy of the beams at the point that they are injected into the (Super) LHC should also be increased to 1 TeV. This will require an upgrade of the full pre-injector system, the needed changes in the Super Proton Synchrotron being the most expensive.

COST

The construction of LHC was originally approved in 1995 with a budget of 2600 million Swiss francs (currently about 1.7 billion euro), with another 210 million francs (€140 m) towards the cost of the experiments. However, cost over-runs, estimated in a major review in 2001 at around 480 million francs (€300 m) in the accelerator, and 50 million francs (€30 m) for the experiments, along with a reduction in CERN's budget pushed the completion date out from 2005 to April 2007.180 million francs (€120 m) of the cost increase has been the superconducting magnets. There were also engineering difficulties encountered while building the underground cavern for the Compact Muon Solenoid.

Safety concerns

While many have voiced concerns that the LHC will destroy the Universe, engineers close to the project claim that the possibility is infinitesimally small. As CERN has pointed out, if the Earth were in danger of any such fate, it would have happened billions of years ago from the bombardment of protons the planet receives that are millions of times more energetic than anything that could be produced by the LHC.

As with the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), people both inside and outside of the physics community have voiced concern that the LHC might trigger one of several theoretical disasters capable of destroying the Earth or even our entire Universe. RHIC has been running since 2000 and has generated no major problems; however the Large Hadron Collider is set to create an environment significantly more alien to nature than the RHIC has ever created, and therefore the probability of catastrophe is greater.[citation needed]
Theoretical disasters include:
Creation of a stable black hole inside the earth which would destroy our planet within 4 to 6 minutes.[citation needed]
Creation of strange matter that is more stable than ordinary matter
Creation of magnetic monopoles that could catalyze proton decay
Triggering a transition into a different quantum mechanical vacuum (see False vacuum)
It is possible that the Large Hadron Collider will create tiny black holes within the Earth . Most physicists expect that Hawking Radiation will cause these black holes to dissipate. The primary cause for concern is the fact that Hawking Radiation - the only means by which these black holes could be dissipated, is entirely theoretical.
CERN performed a study to investigate whether such dangerous events as micro black holes, strangelets, or magnetic monopoles could occur. The report concluded, "We find no basis for any conceivable threat." If black holes are produced, they are expected to evaporate almost immediately via Hawking radiation and thus be harmless, although the existence of Hawking radiation is currently unconfirmed. It has been claimed that a strong argument for the safety of colliders such as the LHC comes from the simple fact that cosmic rays with energies up to twenty million times the LHC's 1.4×10¹³ eV capacity have been bombarding the Earth, Moon and other objects in the solar system for billions of years with no such effects.
However many people remain concerned about the safety of the LHC such as the science watchdog group called the Lifeboat Foundation which has covered these dangers in detail. As with any new and untested experiment, it is not possible to say with utter certainty what will happen. John Nelson at the University of Birmingham stated of RHIC that "it is astonishingly unlikely that there is any risk—but I could not prove it."Furthermore, in academia there is some question, albeit among a minority of scientists, of whether the Hawking radiation theory is correct.

Construction accidents
On October 25, 2005, a technician was killed in the LHC tunnel when a crane load was accidentally dropped

On March 27, 2007, there was an incident during a pressure test involving one of the LHC's inner triplet magnet assemblies provided by Fermilab and KEK. No people were injured, but a cryogenic magnet support broke. Analysis revealed that its design, made as thin as possible for better insulation, was not strong enough to withstand the forces generated by a sudden shutdown. Details are available in a statement from Fermilab, with which CERN is in agreementRepairing the broken magnet and reinforcing the eight identical copies used by LHC caused a postponement of the planned November 26, 2007 startup date [19] to May 2008.[20]

[edit] See also
Fermilab
International Linear Collider
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LHC@home
Superconducting Super Collider
Tevatron

Notes and references

^ New start-up schedule for world's most powerful particle accelerator
^ Symmetry magazine, April 2005
^ "...in the public presentations of the aspiration of particle physics we hear too often that the goal of the LHC or a linear collider is to check off the last missing particle of the standard model, this year’s Holy Grail of particle physics, the Higgs boson. The truth is much less boring than that! What we’re trying to accomplish is much more exciting, and asking what the world would have been like without the Higgs mechanism is a way of getting at that excitement." -Chris Quigg, Nature's Greatest Puzzles
^ Ions for LHC
^ PDF presentation of proposed LHC upgrade
^ Maiani, Luciano (16 October 2001). LHC Cost Review to Completion. CERN. Retrieved on 2001-01-15.
^ Feder, Toni (December 2001). "CERN Grapples with LHC Cost Hike". Physics Today 54 (12): 21. Retrieved on 2007-01-15.
^ Tiny Black Holes - Physicist Dave Wark of Imperial College, London reporting for NOVA scienceNOW
^ Dimopoulos, S. and Landsberg, G. Black Holes at the Large Hadron Collider. Phys. Rev. Lett. 87 (2001).
^ American Institute of Physics Bulletin of Physics News, Number 558, September 26, 2001, by Phillip F. Schewe, Ben Stein, and James Riordon
^ Blaizot, J.-P. et al. Study of Potentially Dangerous Events During Heavy-Ion Collisions at the LHC. (PDF)
^ R. A. Mewaldt "Cosmic Rays" — an article accepted for publication in the Macmillan Encyclopedia of Physics in 1996
^ Jonathan Leake:Big Bang machine could destroy Earth, Sunday Times
^ Adam D. Helfer: General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
^ Hewett, JoAnne (25 October 2005). Tragedy at CERN (Blog). Cosmic Variance. Retrieved on 2007-01-15. author and date indicate the beginning of the blog thread
^ CERN (26 October 2005). Message from the Director-General (in English and French). Press release. Retrieved on 2007-01-15.
^ LHC Magnet Test Failure
^ Updates on LHC inner triplet failure
^ The God Particle. www.bbc.com. Retrieved on 2007-05-22.
^ CERN (2007-06-22). CERN announces new start-up schedule for world’s most powerful particle accelerator. Press release. Retrieved on 2007-07-01.

[edit] External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:
Large Hadron Collider
LHC - The Large Hadron Collider webpage
Challenges in Accelerator Physics
LHC UK webpage
UK Science Museum, London Exhibition supported by the Science and Technology Facilities Council
The Alice experiment
Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) Main Page
Compact Muon Solenoid Page (U.S. Collaboration)
Energising the quest for 'big theory'
LCG - The LHC Computing Grid webpage
The Large Hadron Collider ATLAS Experiment - Virtual Reality (VR) photography panoramas (requires QuickTime)
LHC startup plan. Includes dates, energies and luminosities
Seed short film - Lords of the Ring
symmetry magazine LHC special issue
BBC Horizon, The six billion dollar experiment
New Yorker: Crash Course. The world’s largest particle accelerator (ca. 6 500 words)
NYTimes: A Giant Takes On Physics’ Biggest Questions (ca. 4 300 words)
Beam Parameters and Definitions. The chapter of the LHC Technical Design Report (TDR) that

lists of all the beam parameters for the LHC.
by www.24hoursnews.blogspot.com

Large Hadron Collider (LHC) (about/technical desing)

LHC

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is a particle accelerator and collider located at CERN, near Geneva, Switzerland (46°14′N, 6°03′E). Currently under construction, the LHC is scheduled to begin operation in May 2008.[1] The LHC is expected to become the world's largest and highest energy particle accelerator. The LHC is being funded and built in collaboration with over two thousand physicists from thirty-four countries, universities and laboratories.
When switched on, it is hoped that the collider will produce the elusive Higgs boson particle — often dubbed the God Particle — the observation of which could confirm the predictions and 'missing links' in the Standard Model of physics, and explain how other elementary particles acquire properties such as mass.

Technical Desing

Technical DesignThe collider is contained in a 27 kilometre (17 mi) circumference tunnel located underground at a depth ranging from 50 to 175 metres.[2] The tunnel was formerly used to house the LEP, an electron-positron collider.
The three metre diameter, concrete-lined tunnel actually crosses the border between Switzerland and France at four points, although the majority of its length is inside France. The collider itself is located underground, with many surface buildings holding ancillary equipment such as compressors, ventilation equipment, control electronics and refrigeration plants.
The collider tunnel contains two pipes enclosed within superconducting magnets cooled by liquid helium, each pipe containing a proton beam. The two beams travel in opposite directions around the ring. Additional magnets are used to direct the beams to four intersection points where interactions between them will take place.
The protons will each have an energy of 7 TeV, giving a total collision energy of 14 TeV. It will take around ninety microseconds for an individual proton to travel once around the collider. Rather than continuous beams, the protons will be "bunched" together into approximately 2,800 bunches, so that interactions between the two beams will take place at discrete intervals never shorter than twenty-five nanoseconds apart. When the collider is first commissioned, it will be operated with fewer bunches, to give a bunch crossing interval of seventy-five nanoseconds. The number of bunches will later be increased to give a final bunch crossing interval of twenty-five nanoseconds.
Prior to being injected into the main accelerator, the particles are prepared through a series of systems that successively increase the particle energy levels. The first system is the linear accelerator Linac2 generating 50 MeV protons which feeds the Proton Synchrotron Booster (PSB). Protons are then injected at 1.4 GeV into the Proton Synchrotron (PS) at 26 GeV. The Low-Energy Injector Ring (LEIR) will be used as an ion storage and cooler unit. The Antiproton Decelerator (AD) will produce a beam of anti-protons at 2 GeV, after cooling them down from 3.57 GeV. Finally the Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS) can be used to increase the energy of protons up to 450 GeV.
Six detectors are being constructed at the LHC. They are located underground, in large caverns excavated at the LHC's intersection points. Two of them, ATLAS and CMS are large, "general purpose" particle detectors. The other four (LHCb, ALICE, TOTEM, and LHCf) are smaller and more specialized.
The LHC can also be used to collide heavy ions such as lead (Pb) with a collision energy of 1,150 TeV.
The size of the LHC constitutes an exceptional engineering challenge with unique safety issues. While running, the total energy stored in the magnets is 10 GJ, and in the beam, 725 MJ. Loss of only 10−7 of the beam is sufficient to quench a superconducting magnet, while the beam dump must absorb an energy equivalent to a typical air-dropped bomb. For comparison, 725 MJ is equivalent to the detonation energy of approximately 157 kg (347 pounds) of TNT, and 10 GJ is about 2.5 tons of TNT.

Condensed matter physics has solved

Northeastern University Physics professor Sergey V. Kravchenko along with colleagues Svetlana Anissimova (Northeastern University), A Punnoose (City College if the City University of New York), AM Finkelstein (Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel) and TM Klapwijk (Delft University of Technology, Netherlands), has published an important new paper in the August issue of Nature Physics which answers a long standing question in the field of condensed matter physics.
The discovery of the metal-insulator transition (MIT) in two-dimensional electron systems by Kravchenko and colleagues in 1994 challenged the veracity of one of the most influential conjectures in the physics of disordered electrons by Abrahams, Anderson, Licciardello and Ramakrishnan (1979) which stated that "in two dimensions, there is no true metallic behavior."

However, the 1979 theory did not account for interactions between electrons. In this new paper, Kravchenko and colleagues investigate the interplay between the electron-electron interactions and disorder near the MIT using simultaneous measurements of electrical resistivity and magnetoconductance.

The researchers show that both the resistance and interaction amplitude exhibit a fan-like spread as the MIT is crossed. From this data, the researchers have constructed a resistance-interaction flow diagram of the MIT that clearly reveals a quantum critical point, as predicted by the recent two-parameter scaling theory by two of the authors (A. Punnoose and A.M. Finkelstein). The metallic side of this diagram is accurately described by the renormalization-group theory without any fitting parameters. In particular, the metallic temperature dependence of the resistance sets in when the interaction amplitude reaches a value in remarkable agreement with the one predicted by theory.

"To the best of our knowledge, this is the first observation of the temperature dependence of the strength of the electron-electron interactions," said Kravchenko. "We found that the interaction grows in the metallic phase as the temperature is reduced and is suppressed in the insulating phase."

"Whether or not the electrons can conduct in two dimensions at very low temperatures is a question that has been hotly debated for more than a decade," said Kravchenko. "We now know that, because of the interactions between them, they can, and we have a theory that quantitatively and qualitatively explains things."

More news
About Nature Physics:

Nature Physics publishes papers of the highest quality and significance in all areas of physics, pure and applied. The journal content reflects core physics disciplines, but is also open to a broad range of topics whose central theme falls within the bounds of physics. Theoretical physics, particularly where it is pertinent to experiment, also features. The impact factor for Nature Physics is 12.040, according to the ISI Journal Citation Reports. This places Nature Physics first among all primary research journals in physics.

The journal features two primary research paper formats: Letters and Articles. In addition to publishing primary research, Nature Physics serves as a central source for top-quality information for the physics community through Review Articles, News & Views, Research Highlights on important developments published throughout the physics literature, Commentaries, Book Reviews, and Correspondence.

About Northeastern

Founded in 1898, Northeastern University is a private research university located in the heart of Boston. Northeastern is a leader in interdisciplinary research, urban engagement, and the integration of classroom learning with real-world experience. The university's distinctive cooperative education program, where students alternate semesters of full-time study with semesters of paid work in fields relevant to their professional interests and major, is one of the largest and most innovative in the world. The University offers a comprehensive range of undergraduate and graduate programs leading to degrees through the doctorate in six undergraduate colleges, eight graduate schools, and two part-time divisions. For more information, please visit http://www.northeastern.edu/.

From wiki

Condensed matter physics is the field of physics that deals with the macroscopic physical properties of matter. In particular, it is concerned with the "condensed" phases that appear whenever the number of constituents in a system is extremely large and the interactions between the constituents are strong. The most familiar examples of condensed phases are solids and liquids, which arise from the bonding and electromagnetic force between atoms. More exotic condensed phases include the superfluid and the Bose-Einstein condensate found in certain atomic systems at very low temperatures, the superconducting phase exhibited by conduction electrons in certain materials, and the ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic phases of spins on atomic lattices.

Condensed matter physics is by far the largest field of contemporary physics. Much progress has also been made in theoretical condensed matter physics. By one estimate, one third of all American physicists identify themselves as condensed matter physicists. Historically, condensed matter physics grew out of solid-state physics, which is now considered one of its main subfields. The term "condensed matter physics" was apparently coined by Philip Anderson when he renamed his research group - previously "solid-state theory" - in 1967. In 1978, the Division of Solid State Physics at the American Physical Society was renamed as the Division of Condensed Matter Physics.[1] Condensed matter physics has a large overlap with chemistry, materials science, nanotechnology and engineering.

One of the reasons for calling the field "condensed matter physics" is that many of the concepts and techniques developed for studying solids actually apply to fluid systems. For instance, the conduction electrons in an electrical conductor form a type of quantum fluid with essentially the same properties as fluids made up of atoms. In fact, the phenomenon of superconductivity, in which the electrons condense into a new fluid phase in which they can flow without dissipation, is very closely analogous to the superfluid phase found in helium 3 at low temperatures.

Technorati : Condensed matter physics has solved

Ovarian Tissue Successfully Transplanted

For the first time, a woman whose ovaries were damaged by drug and radiation treatments has undergone a successful transplant of ovaries from her genetically non-identical sister, Belgian researchers report.
According to the report, the 2005 transplant restored ovarian function to Teresa Alvaro, now 35, and she started to menstruate. After a year, two oocytes (precursors to the ovum) were taken from the patient's ovaries and fertilized producing two embryos, according to the report in the Aug. 2 issue of Human Reproduction. Those embryos did not lead to successful pregnancies, however.
Nevertheless, the procedure does support the "restoration of ovarian function after transplantation of ovarian tissue from genetically un-identical sisters," said lead researcher Dr. Jacques Donnez, head of the department of gynecology and professor and chairman at the Catholic University of Louvain in Brussels.
Previously, other researchers had successfully transplanted ovarian tissue between genetically identical twin sisters.
The most important factor here is that it does not seem necessary to use powerful immunosuppressive therapy to maintain the transplant, Donnez said. Drugs typically used to suppress an immune response against the transplant can damage a growing embryo, he explained.
This method of restoring ovarian function might be used when a woman has undergone chemotherapy or radiation, which can destroy ovarian function, Donnez said. "Women can also have ovarian tissue frozen before undergoing treatment and transplanted back after the end of chemotherapy," he said.
But oncologists don't often propose this option, Donnez said.
Although the possibility of oocyte donation from her sister, Sandra Alvaro, was discussed, the patient refused this option, Donnez said. Teresa wanted the transplant, because she considered that having a baby of her own was more natural than egg donation, Donnez said.
Teresa Alvaro had lost ovarian function due to treatments she received to fight a rare blood disorder called beta-thalassemia. In 1990, when she was 20, she underwent bone marrow transplant to help cure the disorder, using marrow donated by Sandra, then 17 years of age. It was discovered that the sisters had an identical "human leukocyte antigen" (HLA) type -- meaning that Teresa's immune system would not reject her sister's marrow or other tissue as "foreign."
Donnez's team knew that because the sisters' HLA type allowed their genetically different cells to coexist successfully, there was no need for immunosuppressive treatment to prevent the ovarian transplant from being rejected.
After six months, Teresa Alvaro started menstrual bleeding. That, along with her hormone levels, confirmed that ovarian function had been restored. Her menstrual cycles have continued ever since, the researchers reported.
After a year, doctors took two oocytes from her ovary and fertilized them with her husband's sperm. One of the embryos developed to the two-cell stage and the other to the three-cell stage. However, both stopped developing, so they were not transferred to her uterus.
Why the embryos didn't develop is not clear, but this also happens during normal cycles of IVF, Donnez said. However, it's too early to know whether this procedure would ever be successful in letting a woman get pregnant and give birth to a live baby, he said.
"The first thing the gynecologist and oncologist need to think about before chemotherapy is to propose cryopreservation [freezing] of ovarian tissue before chemotherapy. That's the first option," Donnez said. "The second option is cryopreservation of embryos," he said. "But even when tissue isn't preserved, we have some hope that transplanting ovarian tissue will restore function."
Donnez hopes in the future that immunosuppressive drugs can be developed that will not be toxic to embryos, making ovarian tissue transplantation a wider option for women.
One expert is unsure about the practicality of ovarian transplantation.
"This is another step in ovarian transplantation," said Dr. Richard J. Paulson, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology and chief of the division of reproductive endocrinology and infertility at the University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine, Los Angeles.
Paulson is skeptical, however, that the technique is very practical. "Why on earth would you bother to do this, when you can clearly do egg donation from the one sister to the other," he said. "That would have had a higher success rate -- instead, they are goofing around with this transplantation of the ovarian cortex."

News Origin.

SOURCES: Jacques Donnez, M.D., head, department of gynecology, professor and chairman, Catholic University of Louvain, Brussels; Richard J. Paulson, M.D., professor of obstetrics and gynecology, chief, Division of Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility, University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine, Los Angeles; Aug. 2, 2007, Human Reproduction

The framed hominid fossil "Lucy," i

The 3.2 million-year-old skeleton known as Lucy was quietly flown out of Ethiopia overnight for a tour of the United States, a trip some consider too risky for one of the world's most famous fossils.
Although the fossil was expected to leave the Ethiopian Natural History Museum this month, the handling of the departure took some in the nation's capital by surprise."This is a national treasure," said Kine Arega, a 29-year-old attorney in Addis Ababa. "How come the public has no inkling about this? It's amazing that we didn't even get to say goodbye."
Paleontologist Berhane Assaw said he worked late Sunday at the museum only to arrive Monday morning to find that the fossil and key staff members had left for Texas.
The departure "should have been made public," he said.
Ethiopia's culture minister, Mahamouda Ahmed Gaas, declined to comment.
The Smithsonian Institution has objected to the six-year tour because museum experts do not believe the fragile remains should travel. Even in Ethiopia, the public has only seen the real Lucy remains twice. The Lucy exhibition at the Ethiopian Natural History Museum is a replica and the real remains are usually locked in a vault.
Lucy goes on display at the Houston Museum of Natural Science on Aug. 31, continuing through April 20, 2008. The other tour stops have not been finalized, according to Melodie Francis, a spokeswoman at the Houston museum. Ethiopian officials have said New York, Denver and Chicago were among the tour stops.
The fossilized remains were discovered in 1974 in the remote, desert-like Afar region in northeastern Ethiopia. Lucy is classified as an Australopithecus afarensis, which lived in Africa between about 4 million and 3 million years ago, and is the earliest known hominid.
Most scientists believe Australopithecus afarensis stood upright and walked on two feet, but they argue about whether it had ape-like agility in trees. The loss of that ability would suggest crossing a threshold toward a more human existence.

More

http://www.hmns.org/index.asp
http://www.si.edu/

PayPal founder Max Levchin in new direction (slides)

Max Levchin already changed electronic commerce as a co-founder of PayPal, an online payment service that is expected to process more than $40 billion in transactions this year.

Now, he's tinkering with a new way to make money off Internet widgets - high-tech shorthand for the mini-applications planted on the personal pages of online social networks and other popular Web sites like Google

Levchin's latest startup, Slide Inc., has emerged as the No. 1 widget maker so far, largely because its programming tools have made it easy for people to add more pizazz to the pictures and videos decorating trendy hangouts like MySpace, Facebook and Bebo.

Hoping to cash in, the 32-year-old Levchin will push Slide down a potentially slippery slope Monday when he injects advertising into the mix for the first time.

"On the surface, it seems like a risky idea because what if (users) don't want advertising in their widgets?" Levchin said. He concluded his idea would only work by making all the ads "user-initiated" - that is, the marketing messages only appear if users voluntarily choose to blend a marketing campaign into their own personal widgets

Levchin and Slide's senior advertising director, Sonya Chawla, insist the approach isn't as kooky as it might sound. After all, they point out that consumers for years have willingly become walking billboards by buying clothing promoting the brands of major corporations like Nike Inc. and Coca-Cola Co.

Given that behavior, Chawla doesn't think it's that much of a leap to assume people will turn their widgets into platforms for showing off a trendy cell phone or attaching links to hot movies and television shows.

"We are really good at getting people to take things and include them on their social networking pages," Chawla said. "We think we can persuade our users to become brand ambassadors."

Lisa Weinstein, a managing director of ad agency MindShare, said Web surfers have proven they will distribute advertising online by steering their friends and family to commercial clips posted on YouTube.

For the approach to work with widgets, advertisers and their agencies "will have to do it in a way that adds value to the experience, rather than interrupting or disrupting it," Weinstein said.

The initial list of major advertisers hoping to get their commercial inserted into Slide's widgets include Viacom Inc.'s Paramount Pictures, AT&T Inc. and Discovery Communications Inc.'s Discovery Channel.

As widgets are melded into more Web sites, they are becoming a more attractive target for advertisers looking to connect with consumers who are spending less time watching television, listening to the radio, and reading newspapers and magazines.

In May, 221 million people worldwide saw at least one Internet widget, according to the latest data from the research firm comScore Media Metrix. Slide's toolbox of widgets, bearing names like "Slideshows," "Funpix," and "Skinflix," was the market leader with nearly 129 million viewers worldwide.

San Francisco-based Slide largely is piggybacking on the rapid growth of social networks, where its widgets are commonly deployed. News Corp.'s MySpace attracted 114 million worldwide visitors in June, a 72 percent increase from last year, while Facebook drew 52 million, more than tripling from the prior year, Media Metrix said.

Levchin launched Slide in early 2005, a couple of years after online auctioneer eBay Inc. bought PayPal for $1.5 billion in a deal that turned him into a multimillionaire.

Slide hasn't turned a profit yet, subsisting so for on an undisclosed amount of money raised from a group of investors that includes PayPal's former chief executive, Peter Thiel, and one of Silicon Valley's best-known venture capitalists, Vinod Khosla.

If Slide's advertising ambitions pay off, Levchin hinted that the company might be in a position to sell its stock in an initial public offering as early as next year.

"Widgets aren't just about fun and games," Levchin said. "This is a big step toward maturity for us."

Self intro by Max Levchin.

Hi. My name is Max Levchin.

I am the founder and CEO of Slide, which you should try if you have not yet.

Before Slide, I co-founded and was CTO of PayPal. You can take a look at some early PayPal photos here.

I am also the Chairman of Yelp.

Courtesy : http://www.levchin.com/

More from aboutMax Levchin
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Max LevchinMax Levchin (b. 1975) is a Ukrainian-born American computer scientist and entrepreneur widely known as co-founder (with Peter Thiel) and former Chief technology officer of PayPal.

Originally from Kyiv, Ukraine (then part of the Soviet Union), he moved to Chicago, Illinois in 1991. He received his bachelor's degree in computer science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1997 and co-founded two companies that made Internet-tools, NetMeridian Software and SponsorNet New Media. In 1998, he founded Fieldlink with John Bernard Powers, which was later restructured to become Confinity and eventually PayPal.

PayPal went public in February 2002, and was subsequently acquired by eBay. His 2.3% stake in PayPal was worth approximately $34 million at the time of the acquisition.[1] He is primarily known for his contributions to PayPal's anti-fraud efforts[2] and is also the co-creator of the Gausebeck-Levchin test, one of the first commercial implementations of a CAPTCHA.

In 2004, Levchin founded Slide[3], a personal media-sharing service.

He also helped start Yelp, an online social networking and review service.

Levchin was an executive producer for the movie Thank You for Smoking

Technorati : PayPal founder Max Levchin in new direction (slides)