The high-tech patents wars are fed by the value of patents as weapons for extracting rich sums from companies and competitors.
But courts are blunting the patent weapon, at least for the kinds of patents deemed vital for communications and data-handling in devices like smartphones, tablets and online game consoles. That trend took another step with an opinion issued last Thursday by a judge for the United States District Court in Seattle.
In his 207-page ruling, Judge James L. Robart took on the issue of pricing for so-called standard-essential patents. These are patents that their corporate owners have pledged to license to others on terms that are ?reasonable and nondiscriminatory,? often known as RAND. All well and good, but what is reasonable to the owner might seem like extortion to the licensee, depending on the price. That kind of standoff becomes more likely if the two companies negotiating are rivals in the marketplace.
With clear prose and some clever math, Judge Robart concluded that when a company has made a RAND commitment to an industry standards organization, the price should be low. That is especially important, he said, for the intellectual property in complex digital devices that are bundles of many hardware and software technologies.
The ruling, according to Arti K. Rai, a professor at the Duke University School of Law, ?fits into a long line of recent cases in which courts are squarely rejecting attempts by patentees to claim high reasonable royalty figures when the patent in question is a just a small piece of the product.?
The case in federal court in Seattle is a breach-of-contract dispute between Microsoft and Motorola, whose mobile phone unit, Motorola Mobility, Google bought in 2011 for $12.5 billion. Google picked up 17,000 patents in the deal, which closed last year.
In essence, Microsoft argued that Motorola bargained in bad faith by initially offering outlandish terms to license its patents on a wireless communication standard, 802.11, and another standard for video compression, H264.
Microsoft contends that Motorola?s first offer, if applied to a wide range of Microsoft products, might result in royalty payments of more than $4 billion a year. Motorola has replied in court that opening offers are nearly always negotiated down substantially, and that Motorola was mainly seeking a license deal on Microsoft?s Xbox video console rather than Microsoft?s wider product portfolio.
Still, Judge Robart determined that a reasonable rate for licensing the Motorola patents would be just under $1.8 million a year. That is not far from what Microsoft was offering as reasonable, about $1.2 million a year.
In his ruling, the judge set out some basic principles. An important one, he said, is that ?a RAND royalty should be set at a level consistent with the S.S.O.s? (standard setting organizations) goal of promoting widespread adoption of their standards.?
Later, Judge Robart explained the problem with relatively high royalties on standard-essential patents. He noted that at least 92 companies and organizations hold patents involved in the 802.11 standard for wireless communication. If they all sought the same terms as Motorola, he wrote, ?the aggregate royalty to implement the 802.11 standard, which is only one feature of the Xbox product, would exceed the total product price.?
Judge Robart?s ruling covers only one part of one patent case ? a price for reasonable licensing terms on Motorola?s patents. And the case is continuing. But his opinion, said Jorge L. Contreras, an associate professor of law at American University, detailed ?some overarching principles that apply in cases like this. He emphasized that there was a social good that should be taken into account, and what is good for the whole market, not just for the two parties involved in the litigation.?
The ruling, Mr. Contreras added, ?makes the big picture a lot clearer.?
It has become a truism that ?men don?t read women.? The assertion is taken as self-evident by feminist publications like Salon (?while women read books written by men, men do not tend to reciprocate?) and shown anecdotally by blogs. It is also perpetuated by male bastions like Esquire, which recently released a list ?of the greatest works of literature ever published? featuring one (1) book by a woman out of a total of 75. (Dudes like stuff that is ?plot-driven and exciting, where one thing happens after another,? helpfully explains Esquire?s editor-in-chief, who introduced Fiction for Men e-books to widespread scorn last year.)
To be sure, the inequalities of the literary world are as plain as the nose on Jonathan Franzen?s face, and many writers and readers alike remain outraged about this unbalanced state of affairs. The Women In Literary Arts numbers for 2012 (compiled annually by VIDA) have barely budged from 2010 and 2011?men still dominate the major outlets as tastemakers, reviewers, and authors whose works are deemed worthy of review. The Nation recently published a cri de coeur by novelist Deborah Copaken Kagan lamenting ?centuries of literary sexism, exclusion, cultural bias, invisibility. There's a reason J. K. Rowling's publishers demanded that she use initials instead of "Joanne": It's the same reason Mary Anne Evans used the pen name George Eliot.? And a recent Salon interview with Meg Wolitzer addressing these frustrations is titled ?Men won?t read books about women.?
The truth is more complicated. Of course men read books about women and have for centuries?what are Madame Bovary and Anna Karenina if not classic books about women? Those canonical examples are merely a couple of the ones explicitly named for their central character. Nobody picking up those lauded works of fiction could claim to have been misled by the title to think they were reading about Hitler?s Germany, or fishing, or fishing in Hitler?s Germany, or whatever else men are solely supposed to want to read about. (Tell me, Esquire!)
OK, you say, but those are books about ladies and traditionally feminine spheres by men. True enough! The same can be said for contemporary publishing phenomena like The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo,The Golden Compass, and their sequels. Let us restate the argument, then: Perhaps men don?t read books by women.That is a solid thesis, but it?s based more on self-perpetuating impressions and assumptions than facts. Because publishers, editors, and agents fear that men won?t read books by women, they encourage people like Rowling and Evans?and, for that matter, the Bronte sisters, Hilda Doolittle, Ethel Florence Lindesay Richardson, Karen Blixen, Alice Sheldon, Amandine Lucie Aurore Dupin, and an exhausting number of others?to hide behind gender-obscuring initials or pen names, and thus they exacerbate the problem. A male-seeming author of a well-loved book doesn?t help to change the perceptions of a male reader, just as a child who hates spinach doesn?t come to love it when it is blended skillfully into his cupcake.
Currently, the No. 1 best-selling book on Amazon.com is Sheryl Sandberg?s Lean In. Also making up half of the top 20: Susan Cain, E. L. James, Sarah Young, Kate Atkinson, Gillian Flynn, Gwenyth Paltrow, Haylie Pomroy, Mimi Spencer, and F. Scott Fitzgerald, for his masterpiece about love, loss, romantic longing, and the hottest parties in town. In 2012, again, 10 of Amazon?s top 20 best-selling books were written or co-written by women, including Nos. 1, 2, and 3. In 2011, the total was six out of 20, and in 2010, it was eight, but numerous spots both years were occupied by the tales of Stieg Larson?s female vengeance demon Lisbeth Salander. Agatha Christie wrote one of the best-selling books of all time (though she gave it a truly heinous title). Margaret Mitchell wrote another, and she shares that honor with Harper Lee, Anne Frank, Anna Sewell, and Johanna Spyri; J. K. Rowling wrote several, as did E. L. James, James?s hero Stephenie Meyer, and the much more sedate L. M. Montgomery. Perhaps a voracious female audience is enough to shoot ?mommy porn? like 50 Shades of Grey and Mormon porn like Twilight to the top of the charts, but it can?t alone account for the tremendous international appeal of by-women-about-women sensations like Suzanne Collins? The Hunger Games trilogy or Gillian Flynn?s Gone Girl. These are not anomalies; this is progress.
It seems clear, then, that men do read books by women and they do read books about women. Occasionally they read books by women, about women, and even esteem them, as in the case of Virginia Woolf?s To the Lighthouse, Elizabeth Strout?s Olive Kitteridge, and Toni Morrison?s Beloved, which was voted the best novel of the past 25 years in the New YorkTimes (it perches atop a list otherwise embarrassingly short on women). Hilary Mantel, Zadie Smith, Jennifer Egan, Marilynne Robinson, Tana French, Ann Patchett, and Cheryl Strayed are only some of the other prize-winning women writing under their own names, who are not only at the top of their game but at the top of their field.
Female authors still have a long way to go before they achieve parity with their male counterparts. The establishment, which as a whole has mainly pretended to take them seriously for the last 30 or so years, is still biased against them?often unintentionally or thoughtlessly. This bias seems to arise less out of malice than out of habit, because men?s experiences are assumed to be universal in a way that women?s aren?t and because men have been writing, publishing, and reading their own stories for almost a thousand years with almost no competition.
Holding the establishment to account for its oversights and entrenched prejudices is key, and it benefits all of us that a range of public intellectuals, from the brilliant Roxane Gay to the tireless soldiers of VIDA, continues that depressing work. But merely repeating the simplistic myth that men don?t read women discourages women and other underrepresented groups from following Amazon?s No. 1 best-selling author Sheryl Sandberg?s advice. It further codifies the noxious idea that men are intellectually uninterested in women as the Way It Is and the Way It Has To Be, because it?s the Way It Always Was. And it obscures the positive change happening, albeit slowly, in the literary world.
Larry Felser, a longtime pro football reporter and columnist for the Buffalo News, passed away?on Wednesday at age 80, the publication reported.
Felser covered the Bills from 1960, when they were one of the charter members of the American Football League, through 2001, the News said. He also was sports editor of the News.
In a statement issued by the Bills, owner Ralph Wilson Jr. praised Felser?s work.
?Larry was there at the beginning of the American Football League and along with fellow reporters such as Will McDonough and others, played an important role in the growth of our league,? Wilson said. ?He was the consummate professional ? tough, but fair, and never one to shy away from clearly stating his opinion.
?I had tremendous respect for Larry and we developed a deep friendship that lasted throughout our lifetimes. We shared some great laughs over the years and that?s what I am remembering most today about Larry. I will truly miss him. My deepest sympathies and condolences go out to his lovely wife, Beverly, and their family.?
In 1984, Felser earned the Dick McCann Award, an honor voted upon by the Pro Football Writers of America and awarded by the Pro Football Hall of Fame for?meritorious reporting on the sport.
For those wishing to read an example of Felser?s work, the Buffalo News recently republished a column he wrote after the Bills? remarkable comeback against the Oilers in January 1993.
Well, it looks as if the Drive news just keep pouring in. Shortly after outing a couple of new features that make the service a little more friendly with collaborators, Google's rather quietly taken to its own social network to announce some offline tidbits. Starting today, users of Mountain View's cloud-based storage goods can easily create and edit any drawings without the need for an internet connection. What's more, Docs, Sheets and Slides will now be automatically available offline -- something that should come in very handy while you're, say, 20,000 feet up in the air with no Gogo in sight. Fret not if you don't see these changes the next time you log in, as Google says "it may take a few days" before the rollout is carried out.
Apr. 24, 2013 ? University of Nebraska-Lincoln materials engineers have developed a structural nanofiber that is both strong and tough, a discovery that could transform everything from airplanes and bridges to body armor and bicycles. Their findings are featured on the cover of this week's April issue of the American Chemical Society's journal, ACS Nano.
"Whatever is made of composites can benefit from our nanofibers," said the team's leader, Yuris Dzenis, McBroom Professor of Mechanical and Materials Engineering and a member of UNL's Nebraska Center for Materials and Nanoscience.
"Our discovery adds a new material class to the very select current family of materials with demonstrated simultaneously high strength and toughness."
In structural materials, conventional wisdom holds that strength comes at the expense of toughness. Strength refers to a material's ability to carry a load. A material's toughness is the amount of energy needed to break it; so the more a material dents, or deforms in some way, the less likely it is to break. A ceramic plate, for example, can carry dinner to the table, but shatters if dropped, because it lacks toughness. A rubber ball, on the other hand, is easily squished out of shape, but doesn't break because it's tough, not strong. Typically, strength and toughness are mutually exclusive.
Dzenis and colleagues developed an exceptionally thin polyacrilonitrile nanofiber, a type of synthetic polymer related to acrylic, using a technique called electrospinning. The process involves applying high voltage to a polymer solution until a small jet of liquid ejects, resulting in a continuous length of nanofiber.
They discovered that by making the nanofiber thinner than had been done before, it became not only stronger, as was expected, but also tougher.
Dzenis suggested that toughness comes from the nanofibers' low crystallinity. In other words, it has many areas that are structurally unorganized. These amorphous regions allow the molecular chains to slip around more, giving them the ability to absorb more energy.
Most advanced fibers have fewer amorphous regions, so they break relatively easily. In an airplane, which uses many composite materials, an abrupt break could cause a catastrophic crash. To compensate, engineers use more material, which makes airplanes, and other products, heavier.
"If structural materials were tougher, one could make products more lightweight and still be very safe," Dzenis said.
Body armor, such as bulletproof vests, also requires a material that's both strong and tough. "To stop the bullet, you need the material to be able to absorb energy before failure, and that's what our nanofibers will do," he said.
Dzenis' co-authors are mechanical and materials engineering colleagues Dimitry Papkov, Yan Zou, Mohammad Nahid Andalib and Alexander Goponenko in UNL's Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering, and Stephen Z.D. Cheng of the University of Akron, Ohio.
This research was funded by the National Science Foundation, the Air Force Office of Scientific Research and a U.S. Army Research Office Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative grant.
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
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Dimitry Papkov, Yan Zou, Mohammad Nahid Andalib, Alexander Goponenko, Stephen Z. D. Cheng, Yuris A. Dzenis. Simultaneously Strong and Tough Ultrafine Continuous Nanofibers. ACS Nano, 2013; 7 (4): 3324 DOI: 10.1021/nn400028p
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Eric Fisher, from Central Michigan, stands with NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell after being selected first overall by the Kansas City Chiefs in the first round of the NFL football draft, Thursday, April 25, 2013, at Radio City Music Hall in New York. (AP Photo/Jason DeCrow)
Eric Fisher, from Central Michigan, stands with NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell after being selected first overall by the Kansas City Chiefs in the first round of the NFL football draft, Thursday, April 25, 2013, at Radio City Music Hall in New York. (AP Photo/Jason DeCrow)
Florida State's E. J. Manuel addresses a news conference after being selected by the Buffalo Bills during the first round of the NFL Draft, Thursday, April 25, 2013 at Radio City Music Hall in New York.(AP Photo/Craig Ruttle)
Luke Joeckel, de Texas A&M, posa con el comisionado de la NFL, Roger Goodell, tras haber sido elegido por los Jaguars de Jacksonville en la segunda selecci?n general del draft de la liga, el jueves 25 de abril de 2013, en Radio City Music Hall de Nueva York. (Foto AP/Mary Altaffer)
Retired New England Patriots' Joe Andruzzi and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell honor the victims and first responders of the Boston Marathon bombings during the first round of the NFL football draft, Thursday, April 25, 2013, at Radio City Music Hall in New York. (AP Photo/Jason DeCrow)
Dion Jordan from Oregon speaks during a news conference after being selected third overall by the Miami Dolphins during the first round of the NFL football draft, Thursday, April 25, 2013 at Radio City Music Hall in New York. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle)
NEW YORK (AP) ? More than 2? tons of linemen, five trades, one quarterback and no Manti Te'o.
The first round of the NFL draft delivered an enormous portion of beef, with 18 teams devouring linemen from the opening pick of offensive tackle Eric Fisher by Kansas City to center Travis Frederick by Dallas at No. 31.
But perhaps the biggest story of the first round was Teo's name not being called by Commissioner Roger Goodell during the 3-hour, 33-minute session Thursday night.
Te'o, the All-America linebacker from Notre Dame, became a tabloid sensation in January with revelations that the girlfriend who supposedly died during the season was actually a hoax. But what may have hurt his draft status most was his poor play in the national title game loss to Alabama, and his slow 40-yard dash time at the NFL combine.
Te'o wasn't the only big-name player who will have to wait until Friday's second round. West Virginia's Geno Smith was expected to be taken, but instead the only quarterback picked was Florida State's EJ Manuel by Buffalo with the 16th spot, acquired in a trade with St. Louis. It was the lowest the first QB was taken since 2000, when Chad Pennington went 18th to the Jets.
The Bills, of course, are optimistic about Manuel.
"If we can develop this guy, he has the talent to take you to the dance," Bills general manager Buddy Nix said. "This guy was further along than most of them as far as his knowledge of the game. ... This guy, to us, has got leadership qualities. He's smart. And he's big."
Also left out in the first round were running backs ? none was taken for the first time since 1963. Among running backs who could go in the second round are Eddie Lacy of Alabama and Montee Ball of Wisconsin. Other quarterbacks still waiting for their names to be called include USC's Matt Barkley, Oklahoma's Landry Jones and Syracuse's Ryan Nassib.
This first round showed off the beef. The breakdown: nine offensive linemen, nine defensive linemen.
"It's always nice when the O-line gets some respect," offensive tackle Luke Joeckel said after being taken No. 2 by Jacksonville. "We usually get the crummy meeting room, the crummy chairs in our meeting room.
"A lot of teams are realizing how important the position is. The guys, they look pretty scoring the touchdowns, but they get space to score those touchdowns from us."
And on the other side of the ball, teams need players to break through the line to get to the quarterbacks and running backs.
That's why Miami was in a trading mood, moving up from No. 12 to No. 3 in a deal with Oakland to grab defensive end Dion Jordan of Oregon.
"We took a player we coveted quite a bit," Dolphins GM Jeff Ireland said of the player he hopes could be the next Jason Taylor. "You've got to knock the quarterback down, you've got to take the ball away. This guy can do one of those two things."
After the opening two picks, the stampede was on. The first seven picks were all linemen.
"That's a lot of love for the big boys up front, which we usually don't get," Fisher said.
Fisher became the first Mid-American Conference player selected at the top when Chiefs new coach Andy Reid chose the 6-foot-7, 306-pound offensive tackle.
"This is so surreal," Fisher said. "I'm ready to get to work right now. I'm ready to start playing some football. I can't process what's going on right now."
After Joeckel and Jordan were taken, it was BYU defensive end Ziggy Ansah to Detroit, LSU defensive end Barkevious Mingo to Cleveland, and North Carolina guard Jonathan Cooper to Arizona.
Fisher was only the third offensive tackle picked No. 1, joining Orlando Pace (1997) and Jake Long (2008) since the 1970 merger of the NFL and AFL. It's also the first time since '70 that offensive tackles went 1-2.
Even without a high-profile passer, runner or tackler going at the outset, the fans in the home of the Rockettes were pumped. They chanted "U-S-A, U-S-A" when Goodell paid tribute to the first responders at the Boston Marathon bombings and to the victims of the explosion in West, Texas. They roared when Hall of Fame quarterback Joe Namath began the countdown to the first outdoor Super Bowl in a cold-weather site by taking the podium and screaming: "New York; Super Bowl 48."
The crowd didn't seem to care that early on the picks were all heifers, not hoofers. No Andrew Lucks or RG3s at the top of this crop.
New Eagles coach Chip Kelly got a road-grader for his uptempo offense in Johnson.
"Tackle is not a very sexy position," Johnson said. "But it's a position of dire need."
In another trade, the Rams moved up eight spots ? and sent four picks to Buffalo to do so. St. Louis then grabbed West Virginia wide receiver Tavon Austin, all 5-8, 174 pounds of him.
The New York Jets may have found a replacement for star cornerback Darrelle Revis ? traded to Tampa Bay ? when they picked Alabama All-American Dee Milliner. That was the first of three straight selections from two-time national champion Alabama: Tennessee took guard Chance Warmack and San Diego got offensive tackle D.J. Fluker.
Oakland used the pick it got from the Dolphins for Houston cornerback D.J. Hayden, who nearly died last November after a collision in practice tore a blood vessel off the back of his heart. He was taken to a hospital and had surgery.
Utah defensive tackle Star Lotulelei, who also had a heart scare at the NFL combine but then checked out fine, went 14th to Carolina, followed by Texas safety Kenny Vaccaro to New Orleans.
Former Patriots guard Joe Andruzzi, who carried an injured female runner to safety after the Boston Marathon explosions, displayed a jersey with the city's 617 area code and "Boston Strong" written on the front. He was supposed to announce New England's pick, but the Patriots dealt it to Minnesota, giving the Vikings three first-round selections.
Andruzzi, a native New Yorker, said, "There's a new saying in Boston: Boston Strong" before unveiling the jersey as "Sweet Caroline" was played on the loudspeakers.
Pittsburgh, which always seems to find standout linebackers, took the highest-rated one in Georgia's Jarvis Jones. The Rams went with another Georgia linebacker, Alec Ogletree with the No. 30 pick.
Notre Dame ended up with a first-rounder when tight end Tyler Eifert was chosen 21st overall by Cincinnati.
Atlanta's choice of Washington cornerback Desmond Trufant gave that family three brothers in the league. His older siblings, Marcus and Isaiah, preceded him.
One major surprise was the New York Giants' selection of Justin Pugh ? yet another tackle, but one who wasn't projected to go in the opening round by many draft analysts.
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Online: http://pro32.ap.org and http://twitter.com/AP_NFL
'For some reason she thinks I'm a bad influence on her kid, but he's doing pretty good now,' Odd Future MC says in new #CRWN interview series. By Rob Markman
Tyler, The Creator Photo: Roger Kisby/ Getty Images
DENVER (AP) ? Six men who set off on a backcountry tour in mountains west of Denver had avalanche gear, had scanned an avalanche forecast, and were hiking toward a safer area to snowboard when they felt a collapse and heard a "whumpf."
Within seconds, the six were swept into a gully, and all but one was completely buried in last weekend's avalanche that was roughly 800 feet wide, 600 feet long and as deep as 12 feet, according to the Colorado Avalanche Information Center's final report on the accident.
With just his lower left arm sticking up from the snow, the lone survivor cleared snow from his face. He struggled to free the rest of his body and screamed for help.
There was no one around to hear him.
"It covered everybody," Colorado Avalanche Information Center director Ethan Greene said Wednesday. "There was nobody left to call 911, nobody left to look for the buried, to help the one person who wasn't buried but couldn't get out."
The man remained stuck for four hours until rescuers arrived, the center's report said.
The state's deadliest slide since 1962 was large enough to bury or destroy a car, the center said. Of the men who died Saturday, one was buried under 10 to 12 feet of snow.
The avalanche was tragic but avoidable, the center said.
The center's report offered new details on the avalanche that occurred as snowboarders and skiers converged near Loveland Pass for the Rocky Mountain High Backcountry Gathering, a day for riding but also avalanche gear and safety demonstrations.
The four snowboarders and a skier who died were all from Colorado. The Clear Creek County sheriff's office identified them as Christopher Peters, 32, of Lakewood; Joseph Timlin, 32, of Gypsum; Ryan Novack, 33, of Boulder; Ian Lamphere, 36, of Crested Butte; and Rick Gaukel, 33, of Estes Park.
Friends identified the survivor as Jerome Boulay of Crested Butte, who has declined requests for interviews.
All had proper avalanche equipment. At least two had avalanche airbags, and some had Avalung breathing devices but apparently were unable to use them, the report said.
"Nobody's immune from getting caught in avalanches. It doesn't matter how long you've been doing this, how athletic you are. ... Everybody can get killed. It's an equal-opportunity hazard," Greene said.
The center has said the avalanche was a deep persistent slab avalanche, in which a thick layer of hard snow breaks loose from a weak, deep layer of snowpack underneath. Colorado Avalanche Information Center forecasters had alerted people about the potential for such avalanches Saturday following a string of April storms.
"If you find the wrong spot, the resulting avalanche will be very large, destructive, and dangerous," the forecast said.
On Saturday, Boulay's group had left the parking lot of Loveland Ski Area, which wasn't affiliated with the backcountry gathering, for a one-hour tour.
They read the center's avalanche bulletin, were aware of the deep persistent slab problem, and aimed to avoid threatening north-facing slopes as they planned to climb a few hundred vertical feet onto northwest-facing slopes, the report said.
But to get to that safer spot, they had to cross a dangerous area, Greene said. They decided to reduce the risk by leaving 50 feet between each person as they trekked. The buffer might have worked to prevent all six from getting swept away all at once, Greene said, but it turned out not to be enough for the large avalanche they triggered around 10:15 a.m.
It took a while for anyone to realize the group was trapped.
Two Colorado Avalanche Information Center highway avalanche forecasters spotted the slide around 12:15 p.m. from Interstate 70. When they reached the scene about 30 minutes later, their avalanche beacons detected no signals. Even with binoculars, they couldn't see tracks heading into the slide area, the report said.
After forecasters drove back to the ski area to ask others at the backcountry gathering whether anyone might be trapped, several people rushed to the scene.
The center urges even expert backcountry enthusiasts to know the conditions, have rescue equipment and get educated on avalanches.
"We owe it to these guys to learn from a really horrible accident they were involved in," Greene said. "The only thing worse than all these guys getting killed is not to have us learn anything from it."
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Online:
CAIC report: http://bit.ly/Zs5JAv
___
Find Catherine Tsai on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/ctsai_denver
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Global equity markets rose on Wednesday on strong corporate earnings and speculation the European Central Bank will cut interest rates next week, while U.S. government debt edged up on safe-haven demand after unexpectedly weak economic data.
Wall Street closed little changed after the Commerce Department reported U.S. durable goods recorded their biggest drop in seven months in March, which tempered enthusiasm over what has so far been a relatively robust U.S. earnings season.
A gauge of planned business spending rose modestly, pointing to a slowdown in U.S. economic activity, which also weighed on U.S. equities and boosted the appeal of government debt.
Recent disappointing data in the United States, Europe and China has fueled bets of a spring global slowdown for a third straight year and forced central banks to take action.
"Poor economic data could lead to some enhanced action from central banks, which has been bullish for stocks and other risk assets" and limited a further decline in Treasury yields, said Mike Lorizio, head of Treasuries trading at Manulife Asset Management in Boston.
The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> closed down 43.16 points, or 0.29 percent, at 14,676.30. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> gained 0.01 points, or 0.00 percent, at 1,578.79. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> rose 0.32 points, or 0.01 percent, at 3,269.65.
The market is trapped in a trading range, leaving investors with the choice of betting on stimulus from the Federal Reserve or the poor economic outlook, said Bruce McCain, chief investment strategist at Key Private Bank in Cleveland.
"Until we get a better news flow here and overseas, it will be hard to get more enthusiasm to drive the market higher," he said of the trend in the equity market.
"In this environment it is hard to justify paying this kind of premium for stocks and it is hard to see the catalyst for strong growth," McCain said.
European equities got a boost after Germany's Munich-based Ifo think-tank reported that business sentiment in the country fell in April for a second consecutive month, coming in below even the most pessimistic forecasts.
The news, which came a day after weak data on German business activity, initially weighed on the euro.
The Ifo report added to the view that the ECB is closer to lowering interest rates than at any time since its last rate cut in July 2012, and is likely to shave off a quarter-point at its policy meeting next week.
Global equity markets, as measured by MSCI's all-country world equity index <.miwd00000pus>, rose 0.58 percent to 363.16.
European shares rose for a fourth straight session of gains, boosted by corporate results. The FTSEurofirst 300 <.fteu3> of top regional shares closed up 0.7 percent at 1,191.82.
British insurer Standard Life and Portuguese retailer Jeronimo Martins led gainers, surging 8.0 percent and 6.8 percent, respectively, after announcing strong first-quarter numbers.
Analysts see U.S. earnings growth of 3.1 percent this quarter, up from expectations of 1.5 percent at the start of April.
Of the 174 companies in the S&P 500 index that already have reported results, 68.4 percent have beat analysts' expectations, according to Thomson Reuters data through Wednesday morning. Since 1994, 63 percent have surpassed estimates on average, while the beat rate is 67 percent over the past four quarters.
European shares extended gains in late trading as dovish comments by ECB Vice President Vitor Constancio fueled talk of a rate cut next week to stimulate the economy after the weak German data. Constancio said monetary policy "will continue to be accommodative."
"A rate cut is on the cards," said Ronnie Chopra, head of strategy at Tradenext.
U.S. crude rose on expectations a glut of crude at the Cushing, Oklahoma, storage hub could ease and on a steep 3.9 million barrel drop in gasoline inventories last week.
Brent futures settled up $1.42 to $101.73 a barrel. U.S. crude futures gained $2.25 to settle at $91.43.
The euro initially edged lower against the dollar but held above a near three-week low as hopes that Italy can resolve its political gridlock were trumped by the weak German data, which fanned talk of an ECB rate cut.
The euro dropped to $1.2954, its lowest since April 5, before paring losses to trade slightly higher at $1.3015.
The benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury note rose 2/32 in price to yield 1.6996 percent.
(Reporting by Herbert Lash; editing by Dan Grebler and Leslie Adler)
Search advertising became such a popular and lucrative juggernaut because it offered businesses the ability to reach and persuade people with true purchase intent. But now keyword targeting is available on Twitter and Facebook, which could loosen Google's stranglehold on ads that convince us what to buy.
PELHAM, Alabama -- The Shelby Humane Society is getting ready for its fourth annual Bark and Wine fundraiser that features plenty of opportunities to help homeless and neglected animals of Shelby County.
The event will start at 6 p.m. on May 4 at the Pelham Civic Complex and Ice Arena, offering a night of drinks, dinner and friendly bidding to help the organization's efforts.
Hosted by the Shelby Humane Society's board of directors, this year's Bark and Wine features silent and live auctions for a variety of items, services and trips donated by supporters of the organization. Ken Jackson will serve as auctioneer.
The silent auction along with drinks start at 6 p.m. A seated dinner and live auction starts at 7:30 p.m. Attire is dressy casual.
"The Board of the Shelby Humane Society is excited to host our fourth annual Bark and Wine," Shelby Humane Society board president Robin Adams said in a press release. "This annual fundraiser gives us the platform to bring awareness to the ongoing needs and necessities of the shelter while showcasing all the good works by our supporters."
Tickets cost $100 per person and they are available for purchase at www.barkandwine.eventbrite.com. Net proceeds will benefit the programs and the pets of Shelby Humane Society.
The Pelham Civic Complex and Ice Arena is located at 500 Ampitheater Road in Pelham.
Study finds that residential lawns efflux more carbon dioxide than corn fieldsPublic release date: 23-Apr-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: David Bowne bowned@etown.edu American Society of Agronomy
More carbon dioxide is released from residential lawns than corn fields according to a new study. And much of the difference can likely be attributed to soil temperature. The data, from researchers at Elizabethtown College, suggest that urban heat islands may be working at smaller scales than previously thought.
These findings provide a better understanding of the changes that occur when agricultural lands undergo development and urbanization to support growing urban populations.
David Bowne, assistant professor of biology, led the study to look at the amount of carbon dioxide being released from residential lawns versus corn fields in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. His co-author, Erin Johnson, was an undergraduate at the time of the study and did the work as part of her senior honors thesis. Their findings were published online today in Soil Science Society of America Journal.
For Bowne, the study allowed him to look beyond the obvious impact of losing agricultural fields to development the loss of food that was once produced on the land.
"That is a legitimate concern, but I wanted to look more at how this change could potentially impact the carbon cycle with the understanding that the carbon cycle has implications for global climate change," explains Bowne.
To begin to understand how the carbon cycle was changing, Bowne and Johnson measured carbon dioxide efflux, soil temperature, and soil moisture under the two different land uses. They found that both carbon dioxide efflux and soil temperature were higher in residential lawns than in corn fields. Additionally, temperature had the most influence on the levels of carbon dioxide efflux, followed by the type of land use.
Higher temperatures leading to increased carbon dioxide efflux was not a surprise for Bowne and Johnson as this relationship has been documented before. "As you increase temperature," Bowne explains, "you increase biological activity be it microbial, plant, fungal, or animal." That increased activity, then, leads to more respiration and higher levels of carbon dioxide leaving the soils.
What was unexpected, however, was that the higher temperatures found in residential lawns suggested urban heat islands working at small scales. Urban heat islands are well documented phenomena in which development leads to large areas of dark-colored surfaces such as roofs, buildings, and parking lots. The dark color means more heat is absorbed leading to an increase in temperature in the neighboring areas. Urban areas, then, are warmer than the surrounding countryside.
The interesting part of Bowne's study is that the urban heat islands in the areas he was looking seem to operate on much smaller scales than he previously thought. While heat islands are usually studied on large scales such as comparing a large city and its surrounding rural areas fewer studies have been done to work out how development may affect temperatures on small scales.
"Within a developed area, within a city or town, you could have local increases in soil temperature because of the amount of development within a really small area," says Bowne.
His research suggests that temperatures may vary even across short distances due to the influence of development. One source cited in his paper says that development within even 175 meters of a location can cause an increase in temperature. Bowne is planning further experiments to test soil temperatures over a range of development setups and sizes.
The other factor that Bowne will test in the future is the sequestration of carbon. Along with the carbon dioxide efflux data in the current study, information about carbon sequestration would give a bigger picture of carbon cycling. That picture could then help researchers determine how various land uses as well as management practices such as no-till agriculture or leaving grass clippings on lawns can change the carbon cycling.
"If we go from one land use to another land use, how does that impact carbon cycling which in turn can affect climate change? Our current study touches on one component of that cycle, and more research is needed to address this huge topic," says Bowne.
###
The full article is available for no charge for 30 days following the date of this summary. View the abstract at https://dl.sciencesocieties.org/publications/sssaj/abstracts/0/0/sssaj2012.0346N.
Soil Science Society of America Journal, http://www.soils.org/publications/sssaj, is a peer-reviewed international journal published six times a year by the Soil Science Society of America. Its contents focus on research relating to physics; chemistry; biology and biochemistry; fertility and plant nutrition; genesis, morphology, and classification; water management and conservation; forest, range, and wildland soils; nutrient management and soil and plant analysis; mineralogy; and wetland soils.
The Soil Science Society of America (SSSA) is a progressive, international scientific society that fosters the transfer of knowledge and practices to sustain global soils. Based in Madison, WI, SSSA is the professional home for 6,000+ members dedicated to advancing the field of soil science. It provides information about soils in relation to crop production, environmental quality, ecosystem sustainability, bioremediation, waste management, recycling, and wise land use.
SSSA supports its members by providing quality research-based publications, educational programs, certifications, and science policy initiatives via a Washington, DC, office. Founded in 1936, SSSA proudly celebrated its 75th Anniversary in 2011. For more information, visit http://www.soils.org or follow @SSSA_soils on Twitter.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Study finds that residential lawns efflux more carbon dioxide than corn fieldsPublic release date: 23-Apr-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: David Bowne bowned@etown.edu American Society of Agronomy
More carbon dioxide is released from residential lawns than corn fields according to a new study. And much of the difference can likely be attributed to soil temperature. The data, from researchers at Elizabethtown College, suggest that urban heat islands may be working at smaller scales than previously thought.
These findings provide a better understanding of the changes that occur when agricultural lands undergo development and urbanization to support growing urban populations.
David Bowne, assistant professor of biology, led the study to look at the amount of carbon dioxide being released from residential lawns versus corn fields in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. His co-author, Erin Johnson, was an undergraduate at the time of the study and did the work as part of her senior honors thesis. Their findings were published online today in Soil Science Society of America Journal.
For Bowne, the study allowed him to look beyond the obvious impact of losing agricultural fields to development the loss of food that was once produced on the land.
"That is a legitimate concern, but I wanted to look more at how this change could potentially impact the carbon cycle with the understanding that the carbon cycle has implications for global climate change," explains Bowne.
To begin to understand how the carbon cycle was changing, Bowne and Johnson measured carbon dioxide efflux, soil temperature, and soil moisture under the two different land uses. They found that both carbon dioxide efflux and soil temperature were higher in residential lawns than in corn fields. Additionally, temperature had the most influence on the levels of carbon dioxide efflux, followed by the type of land use.
Higher temperatures leading to increased carbon dioxide efflux was not a surprise for Bowne and Johnson as this relationship has been documented before. "As you increase temperature," Bowne explains, "you increase biological activity be it microbial, plant, fungal, or animal." That increased activity, then, leads to more respiration and higher levels of carbon dioxide leaving the soils.
What was unexpected, however, was that the higher temperatures found in residential lawns suggested urban heat islands working at small scales. Urban heat islands are well documented phenomena in which development leads to large areas of dark-colored surfaces such as roofs, buildings, and parking lots. The dark color means more heat is absorbed leading to an increase in temperature in the neighboring areas. Urban areas, then, are warmer than the surrounding countryside.
The interesting part of Bowne's study is that the urban heat islands in the areas he was looking seem to operate on much smaller scales than he previously thought. While heat islands are usually studied on large scales such as comparing a large city and its surrounding rural areas fewer studies have been done to work out how development may affect temperatures on small scales.
"Within a developed area, within a city or town, you could have local increases in soil temperature because of the amount of development within a really small area," says Bowne.
His research suggests that temperatures may vary even across short distances due to the influence of development. One source cited in his paper says that development within even 175 meters of a location can cause an increase in temperature. Bowne is planning further experiments to test soil temperatures over a range of development setups and sizes.
The other factor that Bowne will test in the future is the sequestration of carbon. Along with the carbon dioxide efflux data in the current study, information about carbon sequestration would give a bigger picture of carbon cycling. That picture could then help researchers determine how various land uses as well as management practices such as no-till agriculture or leaving grass clippings on lawns can change the carbon cycling.
"If we go from one land use to another land use, how does that impact carbon cycling which in turn can affect climate change? Our current study touches on one component of that cycle, and more research is needed to address this huge topic," says Bowne.
###
The full article is available for no charge for 30 days following the date of this summary. View the abstract at https://dl.sciencesocieties.org/publications/sssaj/abstracts/0/0/sssaj2012.0346N.
Soil Science Society of America Journal, http://www.soils.org/publications/sssaj, is a peer-reviewed international journal published six times a year by the Soil Science Society of America. Its contents focus on research relating to physics; chemistry; biology and biochemistry; fertility and plant nutrition; genesis, morphology, and classification; water management and conservation; forest, range, and wildland soils; nutrient management and soil and plant analysis; mineralogy; and wetland soils.
The Soil Science Society of America (SSSA) is a progressive, international scientific society that fosters the transfer of knowledge and practices to sustain global soils. Based in Madison, WI, SSSA is the professional home for 6,000+ members dedicated to advancing the field of soil science. It provides information about soils in relation to crop production, environmental quality, ecosystem sustainability, bioremediation, waste management, recycling, and wise land use.
SSSA supports its members by providing quality research-based publications, educational programs, certifications, and science policy initiatives via a Washington, DC, office. Founded in 1936, SSSA proudly celebrated its 75th Anniversary in 2011. For more information, visit http://www.soils.org or follow @SSSA_soils on Twitter.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Sony is quickly developing a reputation as the tinkerer's phone maker of choice: it took on responsibility for maintaining AOSP on the Xperia S even when Google couldn't. Today, it's proving that commitment to open software by releasing an Android 4.2.2-based AOSP build for one of its 2013 flagships, the Xperia Z. The initial public version is rough and has to go without proprietary camera and cellular drivers, although it does support Bluetooth, GPS, SD storage, WiFi and a host of sensors. Developers and other experimenters can grab the necessary code on GitHub; the rest of us can stick to marginally safer CyanogenMod nightlies.
Apr. 22, 2013 ? In a serendipitous discovery, scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have found a way to turn bone marrow stem cells directly into brain cells.
Current techniques for turning patients' marrow cells into cells of some other desired type are relatively cumbersome, risky and effectively confined to the lab dish. The new finding points to the possibility of simpler and safer techniques. Cell therapies derived from patients' own cells are widely expected to be useful in treating spinal cord injuries, strokes and other conditions throughout the body, with little or no risk of immune rejection.
"These results highlight the potential of antibodies as versatile manipulators of cellular functions," said Richard A. Lerner, the Lita Annenberg Hazen Professor of Immunochemistry and institute professor in the Department of Cell and Molecular Biology at TSRI, and principal investigator for the new study. "This is a far cry from the way antibodies used to be thought of -- as molecules that were selected simply for binding and not function."
The researchers discovered the method, reported in the online Early Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences the week of April 22, 2013, while looking for lab-grown antibodies that can activate a growth-stimulating receptor on marrow cells. One antibody turned out to activate the receptor in a way that induces marrow stem cells -- which normally develop into white blood cells -- to become neural progenitor cells, a type of almost-mature brain cell.
Nature's Toolkit
Natural antibodies are large, Y-shaped proteins produced by immune cells. Collectively, they are diverse enough to recognize about 100 billion distinct shapes on viruses, bacteria and other targets. Since the 1980s, molecular biologists have known how to produce antibodies in cell cultures in the laboratory. That has allowed them to start using this vast, target-gripping toolkit to make scientific probes, as well as diagnostics and therapies for cancer, arthritis, transplant rejection, viral infections and other diseases.
In the late 1980s, Lerner and his TSRI colleagues helped invent the first techniques for generating large "libraries" of distinct antibodies and swiftly determining which of these could bind to a desired target. The anti-inflammatory antibody Humira?, now one of the world's top-selling drugs, was discovered with the benefit of this technology.
Last year, in a study spearheaded by TSRI Research Associate Hongkai Zhang, Lerner's laboratory devised a new antibody-discovery technique -- in which antibodies are produced in mammalian cells along with receptors or other target molecules of interest. The technique enables researchers to determine rapidly not just which antibodies in a library bind to a given receptor, for example, but also which ones activate the receptor and thereby alter cell function.
Lab Dish in a Cell
For the new study, Lerner laboratory Research Associate Jia Xie and colleagues modified the new technique so that antibody proteins produced in a given cell are physically anchored to the cell's outer membrane, near its target receptors. "Confining an antibody's activity to the cell in which it is produced effectively allows us to use larger antibody libraries and to screen these antibodies more quickly for a specific activity," said Xie. With the improved technique, scientists can sift through a library of tens of millions of antibodies in a few days.
In an early test, Xie used the new method to screen for antibodies that could activate the GCSF receptor, a growth-factor receptor found on bone marrow cells and other cell types. GCSF-mimicking drugs were among the first biotech bestsellers because of their ability to stimulate white blood cell growth -- which counteracts the marrow-suppressing side effect of cancer chemotherapy.
The team soon isolated one antibody type or "clone" that could activate the GCSF receptor and stimulate growth in test cells. The researchers then tested an unanchored, soluble version of this antibody on cultures of bone marrow stem cells from human volunteers. Whereas the GCSF protein, as expected, stimulated such stem cells to proliferate and start maturing towards adult white blood cells, the GCSF-mimicking antibody had a markedly different effect.
"The cells proliferated, but also started becoming long and thin and attaching to the bottom of the dish," remembered Xie.
To Lerner, the cells were reminiscent of neural progenitor cells -- which further tests for neural cell markers confirmed they were.
A New Direction
Changing cells of marrow lineage into cells of neural lineage -- a direct identity switch termed "transdifferentiation" -- just by activating a single receptor is a noteworthy achievement. Scientists do have methods for turning marrow stem cells into other adult cell types, but these methods typically require a radical and risky deprogramming of marrow cells to an embryonic-like stem-cell state, followed by a complex series of molecular nudges toward a given adult cell fate. Relatively few laboratories have reported direct transdifferentiation techniques.
"As far as I know, no one has ever achieved transdifferentiation by using a single protein -- a protein that potentially could be used as a therapeutic," said Lerner.
Current cell-therapy methods typically assume that a patient's cells will be harvested, then reprogrammed and multiplied in a lab dish before being re-introduced into the patient. In principle, according to Lerner, an antibody such as the one they have discovered could be injected directly into the bloodstream of a sick patient. From the bloodstream it would find its way to the marrow, and, for example, convert some marrow stem cells into neural progenitor cells. "Those neural progenitors would infiltrate the brain, find areas of damage and help repair them," he said.
While the researchers still aren't sure why the new antibody has such an odd effect on the GCSF receptor, they suspect it binds the receptor for longer than the natural GCSF protein can achieve, and this lengthier interaction alters the receptor's signaling pattern. Drug-development researchers are increasingly recognizing that subtle differences in the way a cell-surface receptor is bound and activated can result in very different biological effects. That adds complexity to their task, but in principle expands the scope of what they can achieve. "If you can use the same receptor in different ways, then the potential of the genome is bigger," said Lerner.
In addition to Lerner and Xie, contributors to the study, "Autocrine Signaling Based Selection of Combinatorial Antibodies That Transdifferentiate Human Stem Cells," were Hongkai Zhang of the Lerner Laboratory, and Kyungmoo Yea of The Scripps Korea Antibody Institute, Chuncheon-si, Korea.
Funding for the study was provided by The Scripps Korea Antibody Institute and Hongye Innovative Antibody Technologies (HIAT).
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Fertilizer that fizzles in a homemade bomb could save lives around the worldPublic release date: 23-Apr-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Nancy Salem mnsalem@sandia.gov 505-844-2739 DOE/Sandia National Laboratories
Sandia researcher develops a non-detonable fertilizer
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. A Sandia engineer who trained U.S. soldiers to avoid improvised explosive devices (IEDs) has developed a fertilizer that helps plants grow but can't detonate a bomb. It's an alternative to ammonium nitrate, an agricultural staple that is also the raw ingredient in most of the IEDs in Afghanistan.
Sandia has decided not to patent or license the formula, but to make it freely available in hopes of saving lives.
Ammonium nitrate fertilizer is illegal in Afghanistan but legal in neighboring Pakistan, where a quarter of the gross domestic product and half the workforce depend on agriculture. When mixed with a fuel such as diesel, ammonium nitrate is highly explosive. It was used in about 65 percent of the 16,300 homemade bombs in Afghanistan in 2012, according to government reports. There were 9,300 IED events in the country in 2009.
IEDs have killed more American troops than any other weapon during the 11-year war in Afghanistan. About 1,900 troops were killed or wounded in IED attacks in 2012, 60 percent of American combat casualties.
Ammonium nitrate explosives are not limited to Afghanistan. More than 700 IED attacks take place outside Afghanistan each month, and more than 17,000 global IED events have occurred in 123 countries in the past two years. The United States witnessed how deadly ammonium nitrate can be in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing that killed 168 people.
U.S. efforts to curb the flow of ammonium nitrate fertilizer into Afghanistan through seizures, export controls and diplomacy have had limited success. The Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization (JIEDDO) was established by the Department of Defense in 2006 to reach out to the armed services, private sector and academia for counter-IED technologies. JIEDDO last year issued a call for ideas on how to neutralize ammonium nitrate as an IED explosive.
Sandia optical engineer Kevin Fleming took on the challenge and developed a fertilizer formula as good as, if not better, than ammonium nitrate, but not detonable.
An Achilles heel
"I looked at it differently," said Fleming, who retired from the labs in February. "I've been an organic gardener since I was eight. We had five acres in Las Cruces with the problems of calcareous soils that are very similar to those in the Middle East. I know something about commercial farming."
He also knew the chemistry of IEDs from years of training soldiers how to deal with them.
From a terrorist's perspective, ammonium nitrate has an Achilles heel. The ammonium ion is weakly attached to the nitrate ion. They hang onto each other, but the right chemical reaction can easily pull them apart. Fleming reasoned you could separate the ions by adding a compound they would rather cling to, called a metathesis reaction. "It would change into something else at the molecular level," he said.
Fleming tried several materials including iron sulfate, a readily available compound that steel foundries throw away by the tons. When mixed with ammonium nitrate, the iron ion "grabs" the nitrate and the ammonium ion takes the sulfate ion. Iron sulfate becomes iron nitrate and ammonium nitrate becomes ammonium sulfate. This reaction occurs if someone tries to alter the fertilizer to make it detonable when mixed with a fuel.
"The ions would rather be with different partners," Fleming said. "The iron looks at the ammonium nitrate and says, 'Can I have your nitrate rather than my sulfate?' and the ammonium nitrate says, 'I like sulfate, so I'll trade you.'"
Ammonium sulfate and iron nitrate are not detonable, even when mixed with a fuel, as is ammonium nitrate. "It's a different compound," said Fleming, who completed work on the formula in late 2012. "At the chemical level it's a great fertilizer but does not detonate."
Sandia chemical engineer Vicki Chavez ran a small-scale proof-of-concept of the reaction, and validated it. "We were able to prove that there was little to no ammonium nitrate left in the resulting process," she said. "It was very cool. We looked at pure ammonium nitrate and pure ammonium sulfate. The resulting sample looked more like ammonium sulfate."
Fleming said iron sulfate in fertilizer adds iron and acidifies soil. "It does good things for soil health. It takes alkaline soil and makes it more neutral, closer to an ideal pH level," he said. "The closer you get a neutral pH, the more crops grow. Crop yield would improve significantly.
"And iron-containing fertilizer added to the soil would be taken up in crops and help fight anemia and other iron deficiencies in people who eat them."
The soil in Afghanistan is alkaline with a high pH, and could benefit from an ammonium nitrate/iron sulfate fertilizer, Fleming said. "What they use now, ammonium nitrate with calcium carbonate which makes soil more alkaline doesn't make sense," he said.
Danger to soldiers
Sandia could have patented the formula but opted to waive ownership rights for humanitarian reasons.
"One of Sandia's priorities is deploying the technologies that result from our research for the public good," said Pete Atherton, senior manager of industry partnerships at Sandia. "We think that making the fertilizer formula as accessible as possible is the best way to accomplish this mission."
Replacing ammonium nitrate with a non-detonable fertilizer in Afghanistan and other parts of the world will not happen overnight, Fleming said. Ammonium nitrate is produced in huge plants in many locations. "It's easy to get in large quantities," he said. "The sheer volume of ammonium nitrate is gigantic."
But he said there are some ideas about how to get the non-detonable formula, which would not cost more to produce, into the marketplace. "We could give the formula to a neutral party and let them work with the Afghans, Pakistanis and others," he said. "They could set up side-by-side demonstrations to see which fertilizer works better. Prove it to them gradually."
Fleming has informed JIEDDO of his results. He said his sense of urgency in tackling the issue came from looking into the eyes of hundreds of soldiers he trained in anti-IED tactics. "Explosive Ordnance Disposal techs see a lot of IEDs, and about one third of them will die, be maimed or injured by IEDs before getting through their tours, and most from ammonium nitrate-based explosives," he said.
At a meeting last year in Crystal City, Va., Fleming sat next to an ex-Marine who had lost both legs trying to find IEDs. "He had a metal detector, but some bombs are chemically initiated with no metal parts. He stepped on a non-metal trigger and set off a blast that took off both legs. He became a double amputee in milliseconds. So when I sit next to him and see the aftermath of an IED, I have to think of any way possible to keep this from happening."
###
Sandia National Laboratories is a multi-program laboratory operated by Sandia Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Lockheed Martin company, for the U.S. Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration. With main facilities in Albuquerque, N.M., and Livermore, Calif., Sandia has major R&D responsibilities in national security, energy and environmental technologies and economic competitiveness.
Sandia news media contact: Nancy Salem, mnsalem@sandia.gov, (505) 844-2739
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Fertilizer that fizzles in a homemade bomb could save lives around the worldPublic release date: 23-Apr-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Nancy Salem mnsalem@sandia.gov 505-844-2739 DOE/Sandia National Laboratories
Sandia researcher develops a non-detonable fertilizer
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. A Sandia engineer who trained U.S. soldiers to avoid improvised explosive devices (IEDs) has developed a fertilizer that helps plants grow but can't detonate a bomb. It's an alternative to ammonium nitrate, an agricultural staple that is also the raw ingredient in most of the IEDs in Afghanistan.
Sandia has decided not to patent or license the formula, but to make it freely available in hopes of saving lives.
Ammonium nitrate fertilizer is illegal in Afghanistan but legal in neighboring Pakistan, where a quarter of the gross domestic product and half the workforce depend on agriculture. When mixed with a fuel such as diesel, ammonium nitrate is highly explosive. It was used in about 65 percent of the 16,300 homemade bombs in Afghanistan in 2012, according to government reports. There were 9,300 IED events in the country in 2009.
IEDs have killed more American troops than any other weapon during the 11-year war in Afghanistan. About 1,900 troops were killed or wounded in IED attacks in 2012, 60 percent of American combat casualties.
Ammonium nitrate explosives are not limited to Afghanistan. More than 700 IED attacks take place outside Afghanistan each month, and more than 17,000 global IED events have occurred in 123 countries in the past two years. The United States witnessed how deadly ammonium nitrate can be in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing that killed 168 people.
U.S. efforts to curb the flow of ammonium nitrate fertilizer into Afghanistan through seizures, export controls and diplomacy have had limited success. The Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization (JIEDDO) was established by the Department of Defense in 2006 to reach out to the armed services, private sector and academia for counter-IED technologies. JIEDDO last year issued a call for ideas on how to neutralize ammonium nitrate as an IED explosive.
Sandia optical engineer Kevin Fleming took on the challenge and developed a fertilizer formula as good as, if not better, than ammonium nitrate, but not detonable.
An Achilles heel
"I looked at it differently," said Fleming, who retired from the labs in February. "I've been an organic gardener since I was eight. We had five acres in Las Cruces with the problems of calcareous soils that are very similar to those in the Middle East. I know something about commercial farming."
He also knew the chemistry of IEDs from years of training soldiers how to deal with them.
From a terrorist's perspective, ammonium nitrate has an Achilles heel. The ammonium ion is weakly attached to the nitrate ion. They hang onto each other, but the right chemical reaction can easily pull them apart. Fleming reasoned you could separate the ions by adding a compound they would rather cling to, called a metathesis reaction. "It would change into something else at the molecular level," he said.
Fleming tried several materials including iron sulfate, a readily available compound that steel foundries throw away by the tons. When mixed with ammonium nitrate, the iron ion "grabs" the nitrate and the ammonium ion takes the sulfate ion. Iron sulfate becomes iron nitrate and ammonium nitrate becomes ammonium sulfate. This reaction occurs if someone tries to alter the fertilizer to make it detonable when mixed with a fuel.
"The ions would rather be with different partners," Fleming said. "The iron looks at the ammonium nitrate and says, 'Can I have your nitrate rather than my sulfate?' and the ammonium nitrate says, 'I like sulfate, so I'll trade you.'"
Ammonium sulfate and iron nitrate are not detonable, even when mixed with a fuel, as is ammonium nitrate. "It's a different compound," said Fleming, who completed work on the formula in late 2012. "At the chemical level it's a great fertilizer but does not detonate."
Sandia chemical engineer Vicki Chavez ran a small-scale proof-of-concept of the reaction, and validated it. "We were able to prove that there was little to no ammonium nitrate left in the resulting process," she said. "It was very cool. We looked at pure ammonium nitrate and pure ammonium sulfate. The resulting sample looked more like ammonium sulfate."
Fleming said iron sulfate in fertilizer adds iron and acidifies soil. "It does good things for soil health. It takes alkaline soil and makes it more neutral, closer to an ideal pH level," he said. "The closer you get a neutral pH, the more crops grow. Crop yield would improve significantly.
"And iron-containing fertilizer added to the soil would be taken up in crops and help fight anemia and other iron deficiencies in people who eat them."
The soil in Afghanistan is alkaline with a high pH, and could benefit from an ammonium nitrate/iron sulfate fertilizer, Fleming said. "What they use now, ammonium nitrate with calcium carbonate which makes soil more alkaline doesn't make sense," he said.
Danger to soldiers
Sandia could have patented the formula but opted to waive ownership rights for humanitarian reasons.
"One of Sandia's priorities is deploying the technologies that result from our research for the public good," said Pete Atherton, senior manager of industry partnerships at Sandia. "We think that making the fertilizer formula as accessible as possible is the best way to accomplish this mission."
Replacing ammonium nitrate with a non-detonable fertilizer in Afghanistan and other parts of the world will not happen overnight, Fleming said. Ammonium nitrate is produced in huge plants in many locations. "It's easy to get in large quantities," he said. "The sheer volume of ammonium nitrate is gigantic."
But he said there are some ideas about how to get the non-detonable formula, which would not cost more to produce, into the marketplace. "We could give the formula to a neutral party and let them work with the Afghans, Pakistanis and others," he said. "They could set up side-by-side demonstrations to see which fertilizer works better. Prove it to them gradually."
Fleming has informed JIEDDO of his results. He said his sense of urgency in tackling the issue came from looking into the eyes of hundreds of soldiers he trained in anti-IED tactics. "Explosive Ordnance Disposal techs see a lot of IEDs, and about one third of them will die, be maimed or injured by IEDs before getting through their tours, and most from ammonium nitrate-based explosives," he said.
At a meeting last year in Crystal City, Va., Fleming sat next to an ex-Marine who had lost both legs trying to find IEDs. "He had a metal detector, but some bombs are chemically initiated with no metal parts. He stepped on a non-metal trigger and set off a blast that took off both legs. He became a double amputee in milliseconds. So when I sit next to him and see the aftermath of an IED, I have to think of any way possible to keep this from happening."
###
Sandia National Laboratories is a multi-program laboratory operated by Sandia Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Lockheed Martin company, for the U.S. Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration. With main facilities in Albuquerque, N.M., and Livermore, Calif., Sandia has major R&D responsibilities in national security, energy and environmental technologies and economic competitiveness.
Sandia news media contact: Nancy Salem, mnsalem@sandia.gov, (505) 844-2739
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Search advertising became such a popular and lucrative juggernaut because it offered businesses the ability to reach and persuade people with true purchase intent. But now keyword targeting is available on Twitter and Facebook, which could loosen Google's stranglehold on ads that convince us what to buy.![[ Back to EurekAlert! ]](http://www.eurekalert.org/images/back2e.gif){kind=small}
Public release date: 23-Apr-2013
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