By: Jack Barkenbus, Vanderbilt University

Every day about 100 people die in car crashes on U.S. roads. That death toll is a major reason why both Congress and the Trump administration are backing automotive efforts to develop and deploy self-driving cars as quickly as possible.

However, officials’ eagerness far exceeds the degree to which the public views this as a serious concern, and overestimates the public’s willingness to see its driving patterns radically altered. As those of us involved in studies of technology and society have come to understand, foisting a technical fix on a skeptical public can lead to a backlash that sets back the cause indefinitely. The backlash over nuclear power and genetically modified organisms are exemplary of the problems that arise from rushing technology in the face of public fears. Public safety on the roads is too important to chance consumer backlash.

I recommend industry, government and consumers take a more measured and incremental approach to full autonomy. Initially emphasizing technologies that can assist human drivers – rather than the abilities of cars to drive themselves – will somewhat delay the day all those lives are saved on U.S. roads. But it will start saving some lives right away, and is more likely to avoid mass rejection of the new technology.

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Don’t discount the honorable mention!

Each year, the ECS San Francisco Section recognizes a deserving undergraduate student from a college or university in Northern California though the San Francisco Section Daniel Cubicciotti Student Award. The award was established in 1994 to assist a deserving student to pursue a career in the physical sciences or engineering. The award was created to honor Daniel Cubicciotti, a distinguished researcher in his own right. Recipients receive an etched metal plaque and $2,000 prize. In addition, the San Francisco section recognizes up to two additional students with an honorable mention: a framed scroll and a $500 prize.

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Over 1,840 articles were published in ECS journals in 2017, ranging from battery technology to materials science. Among those articles, “The Development and Future of Lithium Ion Batteries” by ECS member of 48 years, George E. Blomgren, stood out as the most downloaded paper of the year, with over 25,000 downloads in total.

The open access paper was published in the Journal of The Electrochemical Society (JES) and has held the number one top download spot for the majority of the year. In November 2017 alone, it hit a record-setting 4,080 downloads. Blomgren credited the paper’s outstanding success to the continued surging interest in lithium-ion batteries, a technology that has made its profound mark on consumer electronics such as cellphones and computers, and continues to be applied to emerging innovations ranging from large scale energy storage to electric vehicles.

The paper, which highlights the past, present, and future of battery science and technology, was published as part of the JES Focus Issue of Selected Papers from IMLB 2016 with Invited Papers Celebrating 25 Years of Lithium Ion Batteries. The focus issue contains contributions from veteran scientists considered by many to be founding fathers in lithium battery science, including Emanuel Peled, Tetsuya Osaka, Zempachi Ogumi, Jeff Dahn, Robert Huggins, and of course, Blomgren.

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The Glenn E. Stoner Collection, which contains 17 articles Stoner published in the Journal of The Electrochemical Society, is available to read for free in the ECS Digital Library.

This sponsored collection was generously supported by Stoner’s former students, friends, and colleagues to honor the significant contributions that he made to electrochemistry and teaching.

Original plans for the collection arose during a conversation between Pat Moran, professor at the U.S. Naval Academy and member of the Free the Science Advisory Board, and E. J. Taylor, ECS treasurer and cochair of the Free the Science Advisory Board.

While the two were discussing the importance of the Free the Science initiative to the future of ECS, Moran proposed that they establish a collection in honor of their graduate advisor, Glenn E. Stoner.

A cohort of former classmates from the University of Virginia, including Paul Natishan and UVA professor Rob Kelly, took things from there, reaching out to friends, colleagues, and companies influenced by Stoner’s teaching and work.

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A new chemical sensor prototype will be able to detect “single-fingerprint quantities” of chemicals and other substances at a distance of more than 100 feet—and its creators are working to make it the size of a shoebox.

The device could potentially identify traces of drugs and explosives, as well as speed up the analysis of certain medical samples. A portable infrared chemical sensor could be mounted on a drone or carried by users such as doctors, police, border officials, and soldiers.

The device’s sensor is made possible by a new optical-fiber-based laser that combines high power with a beam that covers a broad band of infrared frequencies—from 1.6 to 12 microns, which covers the so-called mid-wave and long-wave infrared.

“Most chemicals have fingerprint signatures between about 2 and 11 microns,” says researcher Mohammed Islam, who developed the laser. “Hence, this wavelength range is called the ‘spectral fingerprint region.’ So our device enables identification of solid, liquid, and gas targets based on their chemical signature.”

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In a new paper, researchers describe the underlying mechanisms involved in creating a widely used class of quantum dots that use cadmium and selenium compounds as their molecular precursors.

For more than 30 years, researchers have been creating quantum dots—tiny, crystalline, nanoscale semiconductors with remarkable optical and electronic properties.

They’ve applied them to improve television sets, for example, to greatly enhance color. A host of other applications are in the works, involving integrated circuits, solar cells, computing, medical imaging, and inkjet printing, among others.

But quantum dot synthesis has occurred largely by trial and error, because little has been understood about how the chemicals involved in making quantum dots—some highly toxic—actually interact to form the resulting nanoparticles. The new research may change that, revealing more about the process of quantum dot formation.

Ironically, the team also discovered that, at one point during this process, the safer, more controllable compounds now employed decompose into the same highly toxic compounds that were used in initial quantum dot production 30 years ago.

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The following is a roundup of the most watched videos on ECS’s YouTube channel in 2017.

1. Your donation can Free the Science

ECS’s Free the Science initiative aims to move toward a future that embraces open science. Learn how you can help support this long-term vision for transformative change in the traditional models of communicating scholarly research.

ECS Transactions 80(10) “Selected Proceedings from the 232nd ECS Meeting: National Harbor, MD – Fall 2017,” has just been published.

This issue contains a total of 149 papers from the following National Harbor symposia:

A01 – Battery and Energy Technology Joint General Session

A02 – Battery Characterization: Symposium in Honor of Frank McLarnon

A03 – Battery Student Slam 2

A04 – Li-Ion Batteries

A05 – Battery Materials: Beyond Li-Ion

A06 – Advanced Manufacturing Methods for Energy Storage Devices

B01 – Carbon Nanostructures: From Fundamental Studies to Applications and Devices

C01 – Corrosion General Session

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The following are the updated guidelines for submitting student chapter updates for publication in Interface.

ECS encourages submissions of news from student chapters. Therefore, we try to keep the rules to a minimum. However, some guidance will help in preparing the material.

Point of View: Compose your submission in third person.

Timeliness: Interface is published every three months – spring, summer, fall, and winter. It is best that your chapter update includes information about events, initiatives, accomplishments, etc., from within the last three to six months.

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The following is a roundup of the most downloaded episodes of the ECS Podcast in 2017.

1. Steven Chu talks climate and energy

Former U.S. Secretary of Energy and Nobel Laureate, Steven Chu, delivered the ECS Lecture at the year’s 232nd ECS Lecture. Before he gave the talk, he sat down with ECS Executive Director Roque Calvo for an episode of the ECS Podcast.

“I think as a scientist, you have to be optimistic because usually what you’re doing is trying to shoot for the moon,” Chu said during the podcast. “My optimism comes from the fact that you’ve got a whole bunch of very smart people who are focused on all of the technical problems in the world, including sustainability, energy, and climate change.”

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