You are browsing the archives of 2009 September.

A new video from composer John Boswell: “A musical tribute to two great men of science. Carl Sagan and his cosmologist companion Stephen Hawking present: A Glorious Dawn - Cosmos remixed. Almost all samples and footage taken from Carl Sagan’s Cosmos and Stephen Hawking’s Universe series”

Hey, this ain’t Friday–now that the music’s over, don’t you have a paper to write?

Share

UPDATE: Okay, the problem was that the Obama administration was installing a new version of its main Recovery website. The new site does look better and those who have poked around it more than I have say it offers more transparency.

The DOE made announcements this week about several new grants and loans. These include

• A $528.7 million loan to Fisker Automotive for two lines of luxury plug-in hybrids. $169.3 million is supposed to be allocated to manufacturing process improvements and engineering integration costs related to U.S. suppliers for the Fisker Karma. The Karma is supposed to go on sale in mid-2010. Another $359.36 million of the loan is earmarked for Fisker’s Project Nina, aimed at another generation of hybrids that are supposed to hit the market in 2012. DOE says it will be making additional loans under this program over the coming months.
• $106 million to in funding for Delaware, Hawaii, Iowa, Indiana, Massachusetts, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Vermont and Virginia the development of an energy efficiency and conservation strategy, energy efficiency audits and retrofits, transportation programs, the creation of financial incentive programs for energy efficiency improvements, the development and implementation of advanced building codes and inspections, and installation of renewable energy technologies on municipal buildings.
• Another $550 million in renewable energy awards.
• And, $144 million for Smart Grid “transitional” costs, most of which is going for utility worker training and retrainining, plus funding for state public utility commission staff training.
  

Meanwhile over at the NSF, the agency announced it is giving $20 million to each of six states to assist in research projects. Several of them have a potential tie to materials scientists and engineers (such as monies for basic science energy research in Kansas and South Dakota), but one thing that may be of particular interest is the funding earmarked for South Carolina for research related to “biofabrication–an emerging technology defined as computer-aided, layer-by-layer deposition of biologically relevant material with the purpose of engineering functional 3-D tissues and organs.”

[Also updated] Here are the new charts:

Department of Energy - 5.5% paid out

National Science Foundation - 1.1%

Source: Recovery.gov

Share

Arun Majumdar, who currently heads a Lawrence Berkeley National Lab project that aims to help India reduce its greenhouse gas emissions, has been nominated by President Obama to head the newly-created Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy at the DOE.

The White House announced Majumdar’s nomination — which requires Senate confirmation — on Sept. 18. The IIT-Bombay graduate is not allowed to comment on the nomination until he is confirmed.

Majumdar — dubbed the nation’s new “green czar” by the press — is currently the associate laboratory director for energy and environment at Berkeley Labs in Berkeley, Calif. He also serves as a professor of mechanical engineering and materials science and engineering at UC-Berkeley.

ARPA-E was created in 2007, but only received its budget this February, under the Obama administration’s economic stimulus plan. The agency’s goals are to create technologies to reduce the country’s reliance on foreign energy and improve energy efficiency.

ARPA-E is also charged with reducing greenhouse gas emissions. At Berkeley Labs, Majumdar heads a collaboration between the U.S. and India that aims to reduce the latter’s greenhouse gas emissions while maintaining sustained economic growth.

The collaboration, the Berkeley-India Joint Leadership on Energy and the Environment, involves researchers from Lawrence Berkeley Labs and UC-Berkeley, and other U.S. and Indian universities and organizations.

Share

Credit: CNBC

The gamblers were running amok today. Reuters:

Shares of A123 Systems, a maker of lithium-ion car batteries, had the second-best debut of any 2009 U.S. initial public offering, rising 50.3 percent in their first trading session, far outpacing the four other stocks that came to market on a particularly busy day for IPOs.

[. . .]

After starting at a 25.9 percent premium to their IPO price, A123 shares closed the day at $20.29 on the NASDAQ in a performance reminiscent of the frothy IPO market of a decade ago, given the company has never made a profit.

[. . .]

Investors were drawn to A123 because every major global automaker has plans to bring electric vehicles to the market in the next two to three years, said ThinkEquity analyst Michael Lew, who monitors the energy storage sector.

“It’s a long-term play on the lithium-ion space,” Lew added.

Lew also said the warm reception of the IPO would encourage other clean technology companies to tap the public markets.

Share

Winter 2009 Fellows

The National Academies have just announced that they are soliciting applications for the next two sessions of their Christine Mirzayan Science and Technology Graduate Fellowship Program. One is a Winter-Spring session (Feb. 3 – April 28, 2010) and the other is a Summer session (Aug. 30 – Nov. 19, 2010). Both take place in Washington, D.C., at one of the National Academies facilities.

Named in honor of a Fellowship who was killed while participating in a session in 1998, the program is meant to go beyond the technical side of science. It is designed to engage its participants in an analytical process that shapes U.S. science and technology policy. Applicants selected as Fellows learn how to work in science policy at the federal, state, or local levels.

To be eligible, applicants must be either a graduate student, a postdoctoral scholar or someone who has completed graduate studies or postdoctoral research in any social–behavioral science, medical–health discipline, physical or biological science, any field of engineering, law, business administration, public administration or any relevant interdisciplinary field within the last five years.

United State citizenship isn’t required, however non-citizens must be currently enrolled in a U.S. university and have proof of holding a valid J-1 or F-1 status.

Successful applicants receive an $8,240 stipend to offset expenses incurred during the 12-week sessions.

The National Academies – which consist of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, the Institute of Medicine, and the National Research Council – provide an online application process. The application process also requires a reference from a mentor or adviser, and this reference can also be provided online.

The deadline for receipt of application material is Nov. 1, 2009, for the winter/spring program and May 1, 2010 for the fall program. The rules allow applicants to apply to both sessions concurrently.

To apply or find out more information about the program, go to the Academies’ Fellowship website,

Share