A play from 1921, “The Detour” brings some feminist notes to the tiny Metropolitan Playhouse. Opposition plans large-scale demonstrations on Sunday, with some hoping army may step in to facilitate transition of powerEgypt is holding its breath for mass demonstrations to mark the first anniversary of President Mohamed Morsi's election on Sunday, amid speculation the army might intervene in the event of large-scale civil unrest.Opposition activists claim an unverifiable 15 million Egyptians have signed a

petition demanding Morsi's removal, and expect a significant proportion of that number to take to the streets on 30 June. There have already been outbreaks of fighting in two cities, where Morsi's still-sizeable support base has launched counter-protests.
As a result, many opposition actors hope the army, who deployed armoured vehicles on Cairo's streets on Wednesday, will be forced to intervene and facilitate a transition of power.A senior military source told the Guardian on Thursday that the army did not want to intervene. But they stated that if Sunday's protests were as widespread and prolonged as those that drove Egypt's 2011 uprising, and if serious fighting broke out between Morsi's supporters and his opponents, then the army may regard the protests as a more legitimate representation of the people's will than the elections that brought Morsi to office a year ago – and would step in to facilitate a transition of power to a technocratic caretaker government.The eventual scale of the protests nevertheless remains uncertain, and could

yet prove highly exaggerated.
But some of Morsi's opponents are convinced 30 June will be as pivotal as the 2011 uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak."It's a second revolution," claimed Ahmed Said, a leader of the National Salvation Front (NSF), the secular opposition's largest coalition. "The semi-final was played on 25 January 2011.
This is the final. I don't know how long it will take, but Morsi's going to go – and Egypt will never be the same after the 30th."But protesters may have underestimated the size of Morsi's support, as

well as the lethargy of Egypt's silent majority – many of whom may have been won over by Morsi's earthy speech to the nation on Wednesday night. Though recent polls suggested his popularity had halved since last autumn, his core following remains strong, and can mobilise just as easily as his opponents.
At least 100,000 Islamists gathered in east Cairo last Friday to recognise Morsi's democratic legitimacy – and will do so again this week.
They suggest his critics put their energy into campaigning for parliamentary elections, which are expected to be held in the next six months."Democracy all over the world works in the same way," said one of them, Sabry Roushdy, a teacher from Kafr-el-Sheikh, northern Egypt.
"You come

by the ballot box, and you go by the ballot box. It's not right that a section of society should bring him down just because they don't think he is good for the country."Morsi
himself refused to consider standing down during his two-and-a-half-hour speech on Wednesday.
He apologised for some of his mistakes, and offered to let opponents help amend parts of Egypt's divisive new constitution. But in the main he focused on shoring up his own support – and blamed attempts to unseat him on "enemies of Egypt" bent on undermining democracy.With all

factions unwilling to make compromises acceptable to their opponents, neutral observers fear a violent outcome.
"Egyptians are living in their own

bubbles," said Nathan Brown, a professor of Middle Eastern politics at George Washington University. "The number of actors who think they speak for the entire Egyptian people is a little bit troubling. The presidency thinks it has been elected by the entire Egyptian people.
The army think

they are one hand with the people. The opposition think they are the entire society."Brown said that "in almost any other country", such profound polarisation might lead to civil war. He ruled out such an outcome in Egypt, where the various factions have no organised militias, but nevertheless anticipated some kind of breakdown in political and civil order.Clashes have already broken out between Islamists and their opponents in some northern cities, with two killed and more than 200 injured in Mansoura and Tanta. Many Egyptians expect even worse on Sunday, and have resorted to panic-buying food and petrol, leading to snaking queues at most gas stations, sparse shelves at many shops – and a shortage of cash at some banks.In a sign of international concern at developments, the US ambassador to Egypt, Anne Patterson, spent much of last week trying to convince opposition leaders to rein in their demands.Some want early presidential elections

to end the impasse – but others demand Morsi's immediate departure. They want the army to help replace him with a neutral, technocratic cabinet who would oversee the re-writing of Egypt's new constitution before organising new polls.It was the creation of the Islamist-slanted constitution last November that first sowed the seeds of major dissent. For his opponents, Morsi's unilateral decision to fast-track its completion – despite major secular objections – was the act of a dictator. It showed that while he may have been elected democratically, he is unconcerned about the wider democratic values on which successful democracy depends. For some, it also indicated Morsi was unwilling

to build the political consensus that many of those who tentatively voted for him expected him to seek."Yes,
the opposition must share their portion of the blame," said Yasser el-Shimy, Egypt analyst for the Crisis Group.
"But President Morsi should have done more to reach out. The most detrimental act of Morsi's tenure so far has been that he has not assiduously built consensus and reconciliation as much as he should have."Morsi's decision to award key government positions to his allies rather than his opponents has angered the

latter camp, while he has been blamed for the repression of dozens of journalists and activists such as Bassem Youssef and Alaa Abdel Fattah.
Rights campaigners also lament his failure to reform the police, whose brutality helped spark the 2011 uprising, and continues unabated. Most notably, following the deaths of more than 40 protesters in Port Said during gun battles with the police in January, Morsi chose to praise police actions, rather than investigate them.
"For me, that was pretty much the end," said Heba Morayef, Egypt director for Human Rights Watch. "Those last shreds of optimism that I had were lost finally and conclusively in January, with his response to the Port Said

crisis."Morsi's allies maintain that his attempts to reform Egypt have been hampered by Mubarak-era holdovers. But that is scant consolation for Egypt's poorest, many of whom blame his government's incompetence for a marked fall in living standards.
Egypt's economy is on micro niche finder download leading to ballooning food prices, and widespread fuel shortages.
"He's ruining the country," said Yasser Abdel Samir, a Mansoura resident who had spent hours queuing for petrol. "Look at this petrol queue. That's because of him. There's no water.
There's no electricity. Salaries are low. Food prices are high.
He's going down on the 30th."But such an outcome is unlikely without the intervention of the military. Analysts emphasise that the army has little desire to involve itself after its mixed attempt at interim government following the fall of Mubarak.
"The military will only intervene as a last measure – to prevent the collapse of the state itself," said Shimy. "They know that they will be trying to catch a falling knife if they try to take over."Shadi
Hamid, director of research at the Brookings Doha Center, argued that Morsi and his political opponents might yet agree to a compromise before such an intervention was necessary."I think you'll see very large protests, clashes here and there, and a certain amount of deaths around the country," said Hamid.
"But the fundamental balance of power will remain.
Morsi will stay, and we'll have an effective stalemate. Perhaps the reality of that stalemate, when it dawns on people that Morsi hasn't left power, will force both sides to finally get

serious about sitting down and making concessions."But
for now Egypt remains dangerously split, with many past the point of assigning any legitimacy to their opponents' points of view. "Are you Brotherhood," asked one opposition activist of passersby in Mansoura this week, "or are you Egyptian?"EgyptMohamed MorsiArab and Middle East unrestMiddle East

and North AfricaAfricaPatrick Kingsleyguardian.co.uk
© 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds    -- Eds: Major scheduled events for the week of March 13-19, 2011. Note that many events, especially court appearances, are subject to change at the last minute. Amid the city’s chaos, visitors find charm and character.
How I ended up in the bathtub with my jeans on, thinking I’d found the secret to life.     ACCOMACK COUNTY, Va.
— The massive blaze erupted in the decrepit Whispering Pines Motel last week not far from a sign advertising a $25,000 reward for tips on one of the worst arsonists in Virginia history.
Read full article >> Italy rallied from a two-goal deficit to beat Japan on Wednesday

and earn a spot in the Confederations Cup semifinals.     As a legal dragnet began to close around figures in Russia’s political opposition, President Vladimir V.
Putin returned to Kremlin stagecraft with a live televised question-and-answer session. Will the controversial Europe-wide ban on neonicotinoids help the plight of the bee? We pull together the best news and teaching resources for you to investigate in classBees pollinate three quarters of all crops, not to mention thousands of wild flowers, and without them the world would be a very different place. But their numbers are in decline.
In the past

100 years 20 species of British bee have become extinct, and now 35 more are at risk of extinction.Last week, the use of three types of pesticides known as neonicotinoids were banned across Europe for the next two years.
The ban has been hailed as a landmark victory for millions of environmental campaigners.
But the bee rescue ban wasn't backed by the British government who said there wasn't enough evidence to support the ban and there's swarm of protest from industrial farmers and chemical producers who

say this will lead to a loss of crop production and return to older chemicals even more hazardous to bees.Here
we pull together the best news stories, videos, infographics, teaching resources and websites to help you and your pupils explore bees in the science, English and art classroom.From
the GuardianBee-harming pesticides banned in EuropeEurope is enforcing the world's first continent-wide ban for two years on widely used insecticides called neonicotinoid pesticides which are alleged to cause

serious harm to bees.Bees
and the European neonicotinoids pesticide ban: Q&AAlmost impossible to spell, what are neonicotinoids and what do they do? And what does the two-year ban really mean?March of the Beekeepers - videoTo the strains of 'Give bees a chance' hundreds of people, mostly dressed as bees, created a buzz about bee decline last weekend in London's Parliament Square.What's the value of bees? Eco auditLeo Hickman investigates with the help of experts who join him online and share some fascinating information and stats.Insecticide firms in secret bid to stop ban that could save beesThis article, published the day before the vote in Brussels, sheds a light the UK government's relationship with big chemical companies and the industrial farming lobby, who were involved in intense lobbying to prevent the ban on neonicotinoid pesticides.An
imposing future for Middlesbrough's beesBees live the hive life in beautifully-constructed bee colonies based on landmarks of

Middlesbrough. This article explains a fascinating project combining the science of beekeeping and art.On the Guardian Teacher NetworkBeginners guide to beesGorgeous guide to lifestyle and habits of ten different types of bees in the UK from the Wildlife Trusts, including the honeybee, white-tailed bumblebee, carder bee and tawny mining bee. Also find out how to build a bumblebee nest.Bee spotterThere are a number of yellow and

black flying objects in our skies so how to tell a honey bee from a bumble bee and how not to mix up with a wasp or a hoverfly? This spotter's guide from the Woodland Trust's Nature Detectives reveals.PollinationPlants
need from insects, but particularly bees. Here's how.
It's worth bearing in mind that 70 of the 100 most important food crops are

pollinated by bees.The beekeepers of PitcairnFantastic resource on designing a conservation programme from ARKive a case study on the beekeepers of Pitcairn whose bee population had all but died out by 1978 forcing farmers to pollinate essential vegetable crops by hand until they imported Italian bees.How
do bees respire?This fascinating interactive for key stage 3 students explains how insects give off heat and carbon dioxide.Bee
planePrint, cut out, colour, fold down the dotted line to make a V shape and glue the fold together and hey presto, you've got yourself a bee plane!Bumble board from Nature DetectivesYoung children are invited on a

bumbly bee adventure.
Bees fly for miles looking for food.


So pupils can buzz around like a bee, collecting bits and pieces along the way then stick the results on this on your bumble board. Also see this day in a life of a bee creative writing template.Best
of the webPollination videosSimply gorgeous and fascinating videos of bees pollinating flowers, from the primrose to the Himalayan balsam from ARKive, creators of a google sniper of life on Earth freely accessible to everyone.Buzzing off: How dying bees affects you - infographicExcellent infographic from beesfree.com
on why honey bees are so important to us and what you can do to save the bees. The rest of the site is well worth investigating too.The Bee causeFind out more about conserving bees from

Friends of the Earth where you can also sign a petition calling on David Cameron to make 2013 the year of the bee.Urban
beesThis organisation believes keeping bees is a wonderful way to bring nature to the city and works with numerous schools around the UK.Plan beeThe cooperative's campaign the address the decline in pollinators. Students can also download The Pollinator a free game for iPads and iPods in which they become a bee sent back from the future to save other bees from extinction.This
content is brought to you by Guardian Professional.

Looking for your next role? Take a look at Guardian jobs for schools for thousands of the latest teaching, leadership and support jobs.SchoolsTeachingBeesPesticidesWildlifeFarmingInsectsEmily Drabbleguardian.co.uk
© 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its

affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds     We ask the hipsters of Williamsburg whether they'll be swapping their thick-rimmed glasses for something a bit more hi-techAmanda HolpuchMatt Wells     Mr. Augustine is an independent educational consultant and tutor; Dr.
Baker is an endocrinologist and an assistant professor of medicine.     Housing starts in the U.S.
declined more than forecast in February to the slowest

pace since April 2009 and building permits slumped to a record low, signs the housing market recovery is limping along as the rest of the economy improves. Three decades after Rupert Murdoch moved titles from Fleet Street, group's UK papers, Dow Jones newswire and HarperCollins to be housed together in SouthwarkRupert Murdoch's News Corp is to break its historic ties with Wapping under plans to move its operations into a single UK headquarters near the Shard on the south bank of the Thames.The
group will house its British businesses – the newspaper arm, Dow Jones financial newswire and book publisher HarperCollins – together for the first time from next summer.It
marks the latest move following the phone hacking scandal that led to the closure of its News of the World title.The firm recently rebranded its News International newspaper business as News UK, while parent group News Corp also split its entertainment and publishing businesses into two separate companies, with

21st Century Fox holding its television and movie properties and the new News Corp focusing on newspapers and publishing.Robert
Thomson, chief executive of News Corp, said its move to the new site

at the Place

in Southwark will allow the group to "work more closely and creatively, and leverage our collective resources".News UK, which publishes titles

including the Sun and the Times, is currently based in Thomas More Square in Wapping, having already sold its previous site to construction firm Berkeley Group for £150m last year.It
ends nearly 30 years in Wapping for the group after Murdoch first moved the titles and printing operation there in early 1986 amid a bitter dispute with the Fleet Street printers' unions.HarperCollins is currently in Hammersmith, London, and will use the Place as its London headquarters while keeping offices in Glasgow and Yorkshire.
Dow Jones has offices in Holborn and the City.News CorporationRupert MurdochThe SunThe TimesLondonNewspapers & magazinesNational newspapersNewspapersMedia businessguardian.co.uk
© 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of

this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds     Three awkward investigators from a time when policing was in its infancy get to grips with a spate of riverside atrocities in Georgian LondonLloyd Shepherd's haunting debut novel, The English Monster, took the notorious Ratcliffe Highway murders of 1811 and wove them into a chilling tale in which the real monster was colonialism.
In the sequel we re-encounter his three awkward investigators: the waterman-constable Charles Horton and the magistrates Aaron Graham and John Harriott (a real-life figure who founded the river police in 1798). Six months on from the events of the first novel, they have new riverside atrocities to fathom, also connected with Britain's exploitative trade adventures overseas.Charles Horton is truly a man ahead of his time. On the Highway case, two separate but linked massacres, it's noted: "What was needed was an investigation, and that strange word had spawned others: evidence, detection, theory, proof." Shepherd sets his tale in an era when police work was still evolving.
Crime-solving was almost non-existent, the main purpose of watchmen and patrols being prevention. Peel's Metropolitan Police Bill did

not become law until 1829.Horton
stumbles upon the scene of the first murder as he rambles through Wapping with his wife Abigail. A sailor lies in a lodging-house bed, strangled but eerily smiling, his belongings ransacked but his pay

left untouched.
A further pair of murders sets Horton on the track of a killer who is hunting down crew members recently returned from Otaheite (as Tahiti was known) on the Solander, a ship fitted out by Sir Joseph Banks, president of the Royal Society, overseer of Kew Gardens and friend to the king. As before, the magistrates are tussling over tiresome issues of jurisdiction; and Horton has no real powers to interrogate suspects.Shepherd's
debut used a double-time scheme with alternating chapters; this is more tightly focused, with just a few flashbacks, but Horton and Harriott's investigations proceed in a leisurely fashion, and they are always several steps behind the perpetrator. In a mystery that spans the world both geographically and socially (what could link the ailing King George III with the lowest of sailors?), Shepherd flits between the damaged paradise of Otaheite, the dripping hothouses of Kew and the cells of Coldbath Fields prison in a spirited evocation of an era when roving botanists could also be blithe sexual predators, and "savages" could be both admired and exploited.Georgian London is vividly brought to life, with characters dropping in at Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese and racing everywhere by boat and coach.
Captain Bligh lingers in the wings; and there is a brief glimpse of the corpulent Prince Regent.The
female characters are scarce.
They are foul-mouthed landladies, garrulous sea-captains' wives or silent, compliant island women.


Only Abigail is a fully fledged personality; yet, rather implausibly, she is something of a natural scientist herself. "Abigail has just begun outlining the new debate in botanical classification sparked by the work of the French genius Jussieu …" Shepherd can't resist shoe-horning little bits of scientific exposition into the plot.As in his previous novel, he overlays his historical research with a veil of the paranormal, no mean feat when many of the characters are Enlightenment fat burning furnace review deviates from the crime template to unsettling effect: Horton's fabled powers of observation and deduction fail him at one

crucial point, the bad are not obviously punished nor the good and innocent rescued. It's a little more conventional than its predecessor, but a gutsy, involving yarn nonetheless.Fictionsuzi feayguardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies.
All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds Robert F. Worth’s 2012 piece on the captives becoming captors in Libya.    
The young, the talented and the ambitious are

running into career dead-ends in Russia, setting off a widespread conversation about a new wave of emigration.
The triple world champion and Red Bull face strong threats in the new season that starts in Melbourne on SundayRecent Formula One seasons have been marked both by the quality of the racing and – at least in two of the past three years – by the closeness of the competition. The campaign that gets under way here on Sunday, though, has the potential to be tighter than any of them.When it comes to deciding who will finish where in the two championship tables one might as well play two-up, the Australian gambling game in which two coins are tossed in the air and punters must decide whether they will fall heads up, tails up or one of each.If
2014 is set to be the year of radical change, when the engines will be downsized from 2.4-litre
V8s to turbo-charged 1.6-litre
V6s, 2013 is the year in which an absence of new regulations is likely to see the top teams converge in such a way that the only thing that identifies them is their colourful livery.This
season, then, is the culmination of what in F1 terms has been a period of very stable rules, which means finding the edge technically has become increasingly

difficult. Most of the avenues have been explored and the conclusions reached are generally similar.
With so little to differentiate what will matter more than ever is skill behind the wheel.There will, of course, still be huge efforts to maximise the tiniest advantages from the cars but really what is on offer is five world champions mixed in with Mark Webber, Nico Rosberg and Felipe Massa all competing in what is, for all the Formula's pride in innovation and engineering advantage, very

closely matched machinery.After
taking the title last year the Red Bull team principal, Christian Horner, was already acknowledging that there were specific drivers who could make the difference in 2013.
"I think both Fernando [Alonso] and Lewis [Hamilton] and Jenson [Button] are potentially very strong threats for next year," he said. "Fernando has driven with a great tenacity and consistency this year.
He is at his peak. He will be a formidable competitor next year."They
will both be that but, simply put, Sebastian Vettel and his team have become used to winning.
"That," Horner told F1 Racing magazine shortly before the season began, "gave us tremendous self-belief and meant that even when we fell behind in the middle of last season and Seb was 40 points off the championship lead, we never once lost our focus.""I
fought for the championship last year in a car that was two seconds off

the pace in the winter," Alonso has equally rightly countered but, if Vettel, who has three championships to his name, makes it four by beating Alonso, Button, Hamilton and Kimi Raikkonen in cars with little between them, he will have settled any doubts about his qualification as one of

the racing greats.The only general agreement is that last season's famous five, which finished Red Bull, Ferrari, McLaren, Lotus, Mercedes in that order, should again be the leading outfits. Behind them will probably be the midfielders of Force India, Williams and Sauber, with Toro Rosso a little behind them but ahead of the dilatory double act of Marussia and Caterham.It is unlikely that seven different drivers will again win the first seven races. But last season's frivolous opening engagements are not something that anyone wants to see a repeat of. It was only when the campaign developed a coherent narrative that it became truly compelling, when Vettel and Alonso were fighting for the drivers' title, eventually won by

the German by three points.Last month's three testing sessions in Spain, while clarifying very little, provided further evidence that 2013 would be simply too tight to call.
All the leading teams had their moments but, as Button said when he arrived in Australia this week: "Last winter, if we put a list together of the quickest cars, it would have been completely wrong at the first race.
We just don't know."And

yet we do – sort of. At least we know that Red Bull's RB9 will be mightily competitive. It may be hurt by the decision to ban double DRS (there are a few regulation changes, after all) which was a key component of its

downforce last season. But Red Bull, who surged ahead only in the final races of last season, have appeared, in the winter, doubly determined to hit the track running this season and even their relatively modest performances in Spain failed to disguise the car's possibilities.The team that could push them more than any other is Ferrari, while close behind them could come Mercedes and Lotus. Hamilton's switch from McLaren to Mercedes is the biggest

transfer move in years and brought the cold, pre-season

months to life. Hamilton's move was ridiculed by manyut Mercedes have come up with a fast, well-balanced car which on initial impressions looked as if it might even be stronger than the McLaren.
Hamilton, it seems, could well be quick enough to win races, if not quite the championship this year.
Mercedes will be at their most competitive when conditions are cooler.Lotus
fancy their chances of breaking into the top three. Last year third-placed Raikkonen was one of the most consistent drivers on the grid and this season he will start match fit.
If Romain Grosjean can

finish more races, the team's fortunes will be transformed. Like Mercedes, though, Lotus may struggle to be truly competitive in all conditions.That
brings us to the team who face the biggest challenge of all: McLaren.
Last year they dropped from second to third and they may struggle to finish in the

top four this time unless they manage to consistently place Button in his narrow window of opportunity. They finished last year with the fastest car on the grid.
But that did not dissuade them from making a radical redesign and, when they faltered badly in practice on Friday the team principal Martin Whitmarsh admitted that it forex-growth-bot one of his toughest days in his 24 years in Formula One.A disappointed looking Button said: "I agree with Martin. There is a lot of work for us to do.
The car feels like last year but a lot slower.
In terms of the balance there is not a good feeling but I don't think

we are too far away.
But we have to work on the car's ride and downforce. It is not the place where we want to start the season."Just at the time when McLaren want to impress a potential new title sponsor they are struggling .
A former world champion, who did not want to be named, said yesterday: "McLaren may have to come to terms with the fact that they are just another team."That would be hard to take, especially– in their 50th anniversary year,. For McLaren winning mere races has never been enough.
This is a team

that has always considered itself to be the best and they need championships to prove it.Formula
One 2013Formula OneSebastian VettelMotor sportPaul Weaverguardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies.
All rights reserved.
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this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds glutenTech is developing an on-the-go gluten detection device for allergy sufferers. The two-person team includes one MBA candidate from MIT Sloan. Many broadcasters are already worried about declining viewers,

and now they say the government wants to take away something more: the airwaves themselves.
Worldwide steel production currently totals about 1.5 billion tons per year.
The prevailing process makes steel from iron ore — which is mostly iron oxide — by heating it with carbon; the process forms carbon dioxide as a byproduct.
Production of a ton of steel generates almost two tons of CO2 emissions, according to steel industry figures, accounting for as much as 5 percent of the world’s total greenhouse-gas emissions.The industry has met little success in its search for carbon-free methods of manufacturing steel.
The idea for the new method, Sadoway says, arose when he received a grant from NASA to look for ways of producing oxygen

on the moon — a key step toward future lunar bases.Sadoway
found that a process called molten oxide electrolysis could use iron oxide from the lunar soil to make oxygen in abundance, with no special chemistry. He tested the process using lunar-like soil from Meteor Crater in Arizona — which contains iron oxide from an asteroid impact thousands of years ago — finding that it produced steel as a byproduct.Sadoway’s method used an iridium anode, but since iridium is expensive and supplies are limited, that’s not a viable approach

for bulk steel production on Earth.
But after more research and input from Allanore, the MIT team identified an inexpensive metal alloy that can replace the iridium anode in molten oxide electrolysis.It wasn’t an easy problem to solve, Sadoway explains, because a vat of molten iron oxide, which must be kept at about 1600 degrees Celsius, “is a really challenging environment.
The melt is extremely aggressive. Oxygen is quick to attack the metal.”Many researchers had tried to use ceramics, but these are brittle and can shatter easily. “I had always eschewed that approach,” Sadoway says. But Allanore adds, “There are only two classes of materials that can sustain these high temperatures — metals or ceramics.”
Only a few metals remain solid at these high temperatures, so “that narrows the number of candidates,” he says.Allanore, who worked in the steel industry before joining MIT, says progress has been slow both because experiments are difficult at these high temperatures, and also because the relevant expertise tends to be scattered across disciplines. “Electrochemistry is

a multidisciplinary problem, involving chemical, electrical and materials engineering,” he says.The problem was solved using an alloy that naturally forms a thin film of metallic oxide on its surface: thick enough to prevent further attack by oxygen, but thin enough for electric current to flow freely through it. The answer turned out to be an alloy of chromium and iron — constituents that are “abundant and cheap,” Sadoway says.In addition to producing no emissions other than pure oxygen, the process lends itself to smaller-scale factories: Conventional steel plants

are only economical if they can produce millions of tons of steel per year, but this new process could be viable for production of a few hundred thousand tons per year, he says.Apart from eliminating the emissions, the process yields metal of exceptional purity, Sadoway says. What’s more, it could also be adapted to carbon-free production of metals and alloys including nickel, titanium and ferromanganese, with similar advantages.Ken Mills, a visiting professor of materials at Imperial College, London, says the approach outlined in this paper “seems very sound to me,” but he cautions that unless legislation requires the industry to account for its greenhouse-gas production, it’s unclear whether the new technique would be cost-competitive.
Nevertheless, he says, it “should be followed up, as the authors suggest, with experiments using a more industrial configuration.”Sadoway, Allanore and a former student have formed a company to develop the concept, which is still at the laboratory scale, to a commercially viable prototype electrolysis cell.
They expect it could take about three years to design, build and test such a reactor.The research was supported by the American Iron and Steel Institute and the U.S. Department of Energy.
ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN - A Pakistani court on Thursday gave the central government three more weeks to determine whether a U.S. official facing murder charges qualifies for diplomatic immunity. The ruling prolongs a diplomatic crisis threatening the two nations' counterterrorism alliance.
Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, delivered his Budget to the House of Commons today and focused largely on providing benefits to SMEs, including reductions in National Insurance and funding for external advice. Away from Manhattan’s urban frenzy, one man’s hospitality has created an intimate stage for top-tier musicians.
Their theme might have been “in the dark,” but the MIT students who participated in this year’s 2.00b
(Toy Design), a first-year elective in mechanical engineering, were anything but: Their creations ran the gamut from innovative board games to puzzles to stuffed animals to a comforter that transformed into a pup tent. The toy prototypes were unveiled and demonstrated on campus Tuesday night before a large audience — including many children — armed with clipboards to score the varied offerings. Adding to the fun, each of the 16 teams of five students presented their invention as part of a five-minute skit — some featuring sound effects, costumes and choreography — followed by questions from the audience. The instructors and mentors who introduced each team did so with skits of their