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Andre Geim

Andre Geim, who can lay claim to the title of “father of graphene,” is being honored on Friday with the Körber Foundation’s European Science Award for 2009. The award brings a prize of 750,000 euros.

Geim made his discovery of the material at the University of Manchester (U.K.), where he landed after studying physics in Russia and Netherlands, and he is still an active physics professor and researcher at the school.

The annual Körber European Science Award goes to scientist working in Europe for their outstanding scientific achievements and in particular for their future-looking research projects. An international trustee committee chaired by the president of the Max Planck Society, Peter Gruss, selected Geim, who is the 25th winner of the award.

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Check it out.

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The right chord?: Daniel Poneman, right, with band members ex-Hungarian ambassador András Simonyi and Skunk Baxter.

Yesterday, the Obama administration announced that Daniel B. Poneman has been nominated to be a deputy secretary for the DOE. Poneman isn’t a scientist, and his background is decidedly policy oriented, especially in the areas of arms control, nuclear proliferation and export controls. I really don’t know much about him. At first glance, he seems very much an insider, someone well entrenched within traditional thinktanks such as the Scowcroft Group, the Aspen Institute and the Council on Foreign Relations.

I have some anxieties about this kind of appointment given that - speaking in general now - these insider groups and the individuals that populated them tend to have been more of the “problem” than the “solution” in recent years. Poneman also has unusual quirk. He is/was also a would-be guitarist, see above, in a band (with a least one member, Skunk Baxter, who should have stuck with music instead of conservo-technocracy) that goes by the insipidly un-ironic and insulting name, “Coalition of the Willing.”

So, we will have to wait and see about the wisdom of this nomination.

Here is Poneman’s official capsule bio:

Since 2001, Daniel B. Poneman has been a Principal of The Scowcroft Group, an international business advisory firm based in Washington, D.C.  Prior to that he was a partner in the law firm of Hogan & Hartson. From 1993 through 1996, Poneman served as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Nonproliferation and Export Controls at the National Security Council. He joined the NSC staff in 1990 as Director of Defense Policy and Arms Control, after serving as a White House Fellow in the Department of Energy. Poneman has served on several federal commissions and advisory panels, and has authored books on nuclear energy policy and on Argentina. He coauthored Going Critical: The First North Korean Nuclear Crisis, which received the 2005 Douglas Dillon Award for Distinguished Writing on American Diplomacy. Poneman received A.B. and J.D. degrees with honors from Harvard, and an M.Litt. in politics from Oxford University. He is an Adjunct Senior Fellow of the Council on Foreign Relations and a member of the Aspen Strategy Group.

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Ener-G-Rotors recently has been touted as one of the next big companies. Although I have tried to follow discussion of its “Trochoidal Gear Engine” system since last year, little has been revealed about the company’s “nearly frictionless” bearing system.

Understanding that this is probably Ener-G-Rotors’ ace-in-the-hole, any readers out there have any insights or knowledge about what’s in the bearing system?

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• Titania photoanodes return from the dead. Here, too.
• Clarkson groups awarded for “Electrochemical Supercapacitors Based on Polymerizable Ionic Liquids.”
• Absorbance modulation etches lines one-tenth the width of the light wavelength used to create them.
• AFM maker Asylum Research celebrates 10-year anniversary.
• Power industry might see ‘bust-to-boom’ upturn.
  
• Highly magnetic nanoparticles being tapped to reprocess nuclear fuel.
• Mapping every atom in a single nanowire using Imago’s LEAP AFM.
• U.K. institute to hold conference on nanotechnology and regenerative medicine.
• ‘Size Matters 2009: The ethical challenges facing nanotechnology” conference, June 17-18
• NIST awards Electric Power Research Institute contract for interim smart grid standards.

. . . and, what would happen if you crossed GM with Segway. If, of course, your obvious answer, “a rusty toy for dweebs,” you’d be wrong! The correct answer is, “a cool-looking PUMA:”

. . . adding, not everyone agrees.

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