Prius goes for more energy-saving firsts

The photovoltaic solar panel on the roof of the Toyota Prius generates electricity that runs a cabin vent fan to cool the interior on hot, sunny days.

Instead of calling its hybrid the “Prius,” Latin for “first,” a change in strategy at Toyota could be summarized by renaming the car “Plurimus,” for “most,” because Toyota’s new plan is to make the 2010 Prius the company’s technology flagship car, equipped with all the gadgetry the company can muster.

Time was when all the Prius had to do to stand apart from other new cars was to show up. Launched in Japan in 1997 and the United States in 2000 as a 2001 model, it was the first practical car with a fuel-sipping hybrid electric drivetrain.

…..Some of these features ought to do it. How about automatic steering? The Prius can not only parallel park itself, using the Intelligent Parking Assist feature, it even steers at highway speed, when the Lane Keeping Assist system helps keep the car in its own lane by turning the steering wheel……

….

Then there is automatic braking. The Prius uses the same forward-looking radar employed by the automatic cruise control system to keep an eye out for obstacles in the path of travel. If it spots one, the system issues a warning to the driver and it automatically tightens the seatbelts in anticipation of a possible crash.

….If the driver hits the brake pedal, the computer instantly applies maximum braking force to shorten the stopping distance and try to prevent a crash. But if the driver does nothing, the computer automatically applies some braking force in a bid to reduce the force of impact……

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30769280

Why E-Books Look So Ugly

As books make the leap from cellulose and ink to electronic pages, some editors worry that too much is being lost in translation. Typography, layout, illustrations and carefully thought-out covers are all being reduced to a uniform, black-on-gray template that looks the same whether you’re reading Pride and Prejudice, Twilight or the Federalist Papers.

“There’s a dearth of typographic expression in e-books today,” says Pablo Defendini, digital producer for Tor.com, the online arm of science fiction and fantasy publisher Tor Books. “Right now it’s just about taking a digital file and pushing it on to a e-book reader without much consideration for layout and flow of text.”

With the popularity of the Kindle and other e-book readers, electronic book sales in the United States have doubled every quarter. Though still a very small percentage of the overall book industry, sales of e-books touched $15.5 million in the first quarter of the year, up from $3.2 million the same quarter a year ago. By contrast, the printed book market sales in North America alone was nearly $14 billion in 2008.

The rapid growth of e-books has piqued many publishers’ interest, enabling Amazon to sign all the major publishers and offer more than 275,000 books in its Kindle store.

But despite the rapid growth, e-books are still new territory for most publishers. Add proprietary publishing standards such as the .mobi file format for the Amazon Kindle, and you have a recipe for confusion among many would-be e-book designers.

“E-books today are where the web was in its early years,” says Andrew Savikas, vice-president of digital initiatives at O’Reilly Media, a major publisher of technical books. “And some of those e-books are as difficult to read and browse as the early web pages.”

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/05/e-book-design/

New York State Aims for 100 MW of Rooftop Solar Power by 2015

New York State Governor David Patterson wants your rooftop! Well, the rooftops of public and private facilities which are willing to enter into a public-private partnership with the New York State Power Authority so that the state can install 100 MW of solar power:

The whole thing is intended to help the state meet its goal of getting 45% of its electricity from renewable sources by 2015. Proposals for facilities wishing to participate are due by July 7 (here’s the Request for Expressions of Interest document); selected proposals are expected to begin in 2010.

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/05/new-york-state-aims-for-100-megawatts-rooftop-solar-power.php

Pollution Can Change Your DNA in 3 Days, Study Suggests

Breathing in polluted air may wreak havoc on our DNA, reprogramming genes in as few as three days and causing increased rates of cancer and other diseases.

So says a new study that tracked DNA damage in 63 steel-foundry workers in Brescia, Italy, who, under their normal factory conditions, were exposed to particulate matter.

The same damage may occur in city dwellers exposed to normal air, the researchers say.

Particulate matter includes suspended, tiny bits of dust, metal, or soot in the air, which can lodge deep in the lungs. Exposure to the substance has been linked to respiratory diseases, lung cancer, and heart problems.

Scientists know little about how inhaling particulate matter can cause health problems, according to lead study author Andrea Baccarelli of the University of Milan.

But they did find that exposed workers’ DNA was damaged by a slowed rate of “methylation,” a biological process in which genes are organized into different chemical groups.

Fewer groups means that fewer genes are expressed—or made into proteins—a crucial process in the body’s regular maintenance.

(Learn how DNA works.)

Reduced-size gene groups like the ones observed in the new study have also been found in the blood DNA of lung cancer patients.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/05/090517-pollution-changes-dna.html