Electronic shifting for a bicycle

Stefan Schumacher of Germany speeds down Ombarde Pass using Shimano's Di2 electronic shifting system during the 2008 Tour De France.
Photo: Christophe Ena/AP

Japanese parts manufacturer Shimano is launching an electronic shifting system for high-end road bikes that it claims will vastly improve performance and reduce maintenance. By replacing the conventional levers that pull wound-steel cables through protective housings with solid-state switches and rubber-coated wires, there's no chance for road gunk to clog things up and interfere with shifting, or, for that matter, your post-ride beer.

The principle of an electronically controlled drive train is to execute perfect shifts every time, thus "reducing mental overhead," in the words of Shimano marketing manager Devin Walton. This is a resource cyclists find in short supply during epic rides.

Thursday's announcement that the system, called Di2, will hit shops in January 2009 settles a question first raised in 2005 when prototypes began cropping up on the bikes of select Shimano-sponsored racers in the pro peloton. The system's development has been photographed, chronicled and Angsted over ever since.

But if the existence of electronic shifting comes as no surprise, its weigh-in certainly should. During a recent telephone interview, an industry insider who spoke on condition of anonymity stopped cold amid a why-do-we-need-this diatribe, upon learning that Di2 weighs less than Shimano's current generation of parts. According to the company, Di2 will be 67 grams lighter than the current Dura-Ace 7800 and only 68 grams heavier than Dura-Ace 7900, the snazzy forthcoming 2009 suite of parts. "I'll be going to hell," said the source, who then fell silent -- no doubt converting grams to ounces to fractions of a pound to the limitless advantages of such weight savings. That's at least an extra Clif Bar.

Di2's front derailleur automatically adjusts itself so the chain doesn't rub as you shift.

Shimano plans to offer the electronic setup as an upgrade option within the 7900 group -- which is preselling for $2,600 -- so parts such as the two-tone cranks and brakes will be the same. (No word yet on the additional cost for electric; it could be double.) Di2 consists of two brake-and-shift levers, two derailleurs whose springs have been replaced by servo-motors, a 7.4-volt lithium-ion battery pack, and the wiring harness that connects everything.

The derailleurs, whose job is to move the chain from gear to gear as you shift, talk to each other and automatically adjust so the chain doesn't rub. They also calibrate themselves, so you don't have to play with cable tension to maintain shift quality as cables stretch and the chain and cogs wear. And although the control buttons have been placed in the traditional location behind the brake levers -- so as not to confuse anyone or overly tax that mental overhead -- they could be integrated with the ends of time-trial bars, the top of the handlebars or just about anywhere a rider might find convenient.

Still, the advantage that people who've experienced the system talk about is how little effort it takes to change gears. A quick nudge to one of the shift switches signals a motorized worm gear in the derailleur to instantly move the precise amount it needs to. Fractions of a second later, the chain snaps into position.

Chris d'Aluisio, director of advanced research and development for Specialized, likens the difference between mechanical and electric shifting to the difference between driving a race car with a manual transmission and one with F-1 style paddle shifters. "You can stay on the gas and flip through the gears with no hesitation," said d'Aluisio. "It's seamless power."

Frankie Andreu, who raced in nine Tours de France, described the shifting as "immediate and very smooth and accurate.... It's super nice."

Even my curmudgeonly unidentified source said, "The shifting is mind-blowing: I mean, you just touch the button, and it shifts."

The shift buttons are located in the traditional place -- behind the brake levers -- but they could go anywhere without affecting the performance of the system.

But let's not lose perspective. Shimano isn't the first company to attempt electronic shifting. Mavic introduced Zap in 1994 and then a wireless version called Mektronic in 2000, neither of which survived. Zap's wires proved to be less than waterproof, and Mektronic was finicky to set up properly. Shimano, notorious for its rigorous testing gauntlet, is betting that its engineers have solved the electricity problem -- and so is Campagnolo, a competitor that is on a similar development path but has yet to announce when it will release its system.

The crux of the engineering challenge is making the battery light yet long-lasting, so Shimano's engineers turned to the hardest-working part in any shifting system: the front derailleur. It's also the most temperamental, with a nasty habit of dropping or jamming the chain if the rider doesn't modulate his tempo properly while shifting. (Mavic didn't even go there -- only the rear was electric.) To be fair, the front derailleur has the notably tough job of moving a chain under heavy load between two gears of dramatically different sizes, moving at different speeds. The Di2 crew knew going in that it would require three or four times the juice of the rear derailleur.

So, when Shimano started out in 2003, the initial strategy was to throw a bunch of power at the problem, and take advantage of the servo-motor's massive torque. But this came at too high a cost, according to former Olympian Wayne Stetina, a Shimano vice president whose primary job is to test equipment and provide feedback to the engineers in Japan. "As I recall, in 2004 we had a much larger battery that went dead on me several times during long rides," said Stetina, who has logged 19,000 miles on various iterations of Di2. "It couldn't last more than three or four hours between charges, and the battery pack and control system weighed nearly a pound."

Shimano claims that the 7.4-volt lithium-ion battery will go 1,000 kilometers between charges.

That wasn't going to fly in a sport where grams can translate directly into seconds. The trick would be to conserve power, not squander it. Shimano's engineers redesigned the geometry of the front-derailleur to amplify the force, so they could get the necessary output with far less input. The greater leverage of the new derailleur allowed for a much smaller battery and ultimately shaved half a pound off the system. Stetina claims the battery consistently lasts 2,000 miles between charges (which takes 90 minutes). Officially, Shimano says the battery will last for 1,000 kilometers (621 miles).

The front derailleur doesn't actually move with more force or more speed, as you might assume. It does receive the signal to shift faster than you can send one by cranking on your lever and fighting against friction, spring tension and a lesser mechanical advantage. More important, it should do the same exact thing, every time, without needing to be coaxed or cursed. Powered as it is by an electric motor, the front derailleur simply moves a calibrated distance when it's told. "It just jams the chain into the big ring, no matter how much load is on it," d'Aluisio said. "You don't lose any momentum, and your legs never stall."

Road-bike aficionados are much like trout: simultaneously enthralled and mortified by anything shiny and new that enters their environment. And so it's not surprising that the first two questions people tend to ask about Di2 are: 1) What if the battery dies? and 2) What if it gets wet?

Stetina believes he's personally answered the first. And besides, he said, there is a battery meter on the Flight Deck computer (which includes heart rate, altimeter, inclinometer, calorie counter and the ability to download all these details to your PC after the ride). His unscientific-though-admirable strategy for testing the waterproofness of the system has been to blast the components with the high-pressure hose at a coin-op car wash.

Presumably Shimano's engineers in Japan have more-traditional testing methods. The company prides itself on systems engineering, and has been working on this set of components for more than five years. How will it work? You can find out for yourself when Di2 goes on sale in January. Call us when you've put 12,000 miles on it

The $46,616.47 Oil Change and Size-22 Carbon Footprint

Of all the absurdly wealthy men in the Middle East, at least one has far more money than sense and proved it when he had his Lamborghini flown from Qatar to Britain for an oil change.

According the The Sun, the owner -- which the paper surmises is a sheik -- had Qatar Airways ship the Murcielago LP640 about 6,500 miles round trip at a cost of about 39 grand and God-knows-how-much greenhouse gas just to service the car (cost: $7,030.47). "This car doesn't have a carbon footprint," an unnamed airport worker told The Sun. "More like a crater."

Environmentalists are all but demanding the unidentified owner's head, the UK Lambo club can't see what all the fuss is about and Lamborghini has found itself in a bit of a sticky wicket.

"With rising fuel costs and concern about climate change, most people are likely to find this type of wasteful and damaging activity outrageous," Tony Bosworth of Friends of the Earth told the BBC. "The pollution from driving a Lamborghini is bad enough, but flying one thousands of miles for a service is taking climate-wrecking behavior to new heights."

For the record, the LP640 has a 6.5-liter V-12 that produces 640 horsepower. It gets about a dozen mpg and emits 495 grams/kilometer of carbon dioxide. That's about four times greater than the 130 g/km limit the European Union wants to place on autos.

David Price of Lamborghini Club UK essentially told the environmentalists to bugger off. He told the BBC that Bosworth's argument isn't "relevant to anything" and The Sun quoted him saying, “If an owner wants to service his car in that way, it is his choice. I'm not surprised. Thankfully an age of excess in some areas continues."

As for Lamborghini, it appears to be dancing like Fred Astaire. Lamborghini UK spokeswoman Juliet Jarvis told the BBC that the car was not serviced by any of Lamborghini's authorized dealers in the UK. But she told The Sun there could be “kudos” for the guy having his car serviced in London. She noted that most cars are serviced in the same country they're purchased -- imagine that! -- but, “This sort of thing is not unheard of.”

Yes, because we all know how hard it is to find oil in the Middle East.

Photo by Lamborghini. To see a pic of the car in question at Heathrow,

Tidal Power comes to Market

Tidal power: Marine Current Technologies, based in the United Kingdom, has built a system called SeaGen that uses two turbines to generate electricity from the tidal currents in Northern Ireland’s Strangford Lough. The turbines are connected to a crossbar on a large steel beam embedded in the seabed. The crossbar can be raised and lowered so that researchers can inspect the turbines. Credit: Marine Current Technologies

The world's first commercial tidal-power system has been connected to the National Grid in Northern Ireland. Built by the British tidal-energy company Marine Current Technologies (MCT), the 1.2-megawatt system consists of two submerged turbines that are harvesting energy from Strangford Lough's tidal currents. The company expects that once the system, called SeaGen, is fully operational, it will be able to provide electricity to approximately one thousand homes.

The system is currently being tested and has briefly generated 150 kilowatts of power into the grid. But it has also damaged one of its rotors due to a failure in the control system when the rotor began turning too fast. Although the problem was a minor setback, the unit is not expected to start running continuously and at full capacity until November, says Peter Fraenkel, the technical director at MCT.

The technology works like a wind turbine, but instead of wind, the turbines are driven by the flow of tidal currents. It offers a significant advantage over wind because currents are predictable, says James Taylor, the general manager of environmental planning and monitoring at Nova Scotia Power, a company that also has plans for a one-megawatt tidal-power project. "Wind is intermittent and, because of that, is much more difficult and expensive to integrate in a power system," he says.

Generating power from currents in the form of "watermills" was first demonstrated by MCT in 1994 with a 15-kilowatt system in Loch Linnhe, off the west coast of Scotland. In 2003, MCT installed a 300-kilowatt system off the coast of Lynmouth, England. At the same time, a Norway-based energy company, Hammerfest Strom, installed a like-sized system in the Kvalsund strait. In the spring of 2007, Verdant Power submerged six 35-kilowatt turbines in New York City's East River. SeaGen, however, is much larger than any of these systems and is not an experimental device, says Fraenkel.

SeaGen uses two rotors that are 16 meters in diameter and can each produce 600 kilowatts of power. Fraenkel says that using two rotors is a "cost-effective solution" because the depth of the seas limits the size of the rotors. "We have to grow sideways," he says.

The researchers also have complete control over the rotors. "They are pitched like the propeller on an old aircraft, so by changing the angle--which dictates how much force is produced--of the blades, it allows us to optimize the rotor," says Fraenkel. The researchers can start and stop the rotor, and make it go faster or slower. And to prevent any damage to the ecosystem, it is important that the researchers keep the rotors at about 14 revolutions per minute, a speed that is too slow for marine life to run into the blades or to alter tides. The rotors are connected to a crossbar on a large steel beam that is held in place by four legs cemented into the seabed. The crossbar can be raised above or lowered below the surface of the water for easy assess to the turbines.

Patient Matched Stem Cells.

Motor neurons: Scientists generated motor neurons (cell nuclei shown here in red), which are destroyed in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), from stem cells created from a patient with the disease. The newly created cells should allow scientists to study the disease and screen new drugs. All neurons are marked in green. Credit: Kit Rodolfa and John Dimos at Harvard University

Stem cells derived from the skin of an 82-year-old patient with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) could provide a novel model for studying the degenerative motor disease and for screening new treatment drugs; eventually, it could pave the way for cell-replacement therapies. The findings, published today online in Science, were made possible by new techniques to reprogram adult cells to become pluripotent--able to become any type of cell in the body.

Researchers have long wanted to make stem cells from actual patients to better understand the diseases from which they suffer. "Because the cells harbor genes that led to the disease in that patient, we might be able to use them in the laboratory to understand certain aspects of disease," says Kevin Eggan, a stem-cell scientist at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute, who led part of the research.

To create the stem cells, researchers used a novel technique, recently developed by scientists in Japan, that doesn't require human eggs or the creation or destruction of embryos, and thus bypasses major ethical and technical hurdles that have plagued the field of embryonic stem-cell research. Eggan's team exposed the patient's skin cells to four genetic factors found in the developing embryo. The procedure turned back the clock on the cells, triggering them to look and behave like embryonic stem cells.

While scientists had already used these reprogramming techniques to create stem cells from skin cells, this is the first time that these cells--called induced pluripotent stem cells, or IPS cells--have been generated from a patient. The ability to do so is key to creating models for studying complex genetic diseases, such as Alzheimer's. The findings also confirm that it's possible to use reprogramming techniques in older people and in those with a serious disease. "It was unclear if the fact that the patient had been sick for many years would interfere with our ability to reprogram [the cells]," says Eggan.

The researchers prodded the stem cells to differentiate into motor neurons by exposing them to another series of chemicals. Motor neurons are the primary cell type destroyed in ALS, a progressive neurodegenerative disease. While animal models of the disease exist, they can't capture the complexity of human biology.

The new research allows scientists to generate an endless supply of motor neurons that are genetically identical to those of the cell donor, which should allow them to study the molecular events that trigger the disease. "Now we can see if they behave in a manner that mimics the disease," says Chris Henderson, codirector of the Motor Neuron Center at Columbia University, in New York, who led part of the research. "For example, do they tend to die and degenerate in the culture dish? If so, we can try to understand more about the mechanism of degeneration." Scientists also hope to use the cells to screen for new drugs that protect against neurodegeneration in ALS.

Diseased stem cells: Scientists generated a type of nerve cell called an astrocyte (shown here in red) from stem cells created from a patient with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Previous studies suggest that these cells play an important role in the progression of the motor neuron degeneration. The green cells are neurons, while the blue circles highlight cell nuclei. Credit: Kit Rodolfa and John Dimos at Harvard University

"It is likely that this will be one of the most important uses of stem cells during the next 10 to 20 years," said Ian Wilmut, director of the Scottish Centre for Regenerative Medicine, in Edinburgh, in an e-mail. Wilmut, best known for the cloning research that produced Dolly the sheep, was not involved in the current project but is pursuing a similar path.

Because the cells were created using genetic engineering, they are not suitable for therapeutic use. Scientists are now working on ways to reprogram cells using drugs rather than genes. However, therapies using IPS cells to replace the cells damaged in disease are likely years, if not decades, away.

The researchers haven't yet studied the new motor neurons for signs of disease, but similar experiments in mice hint at the cells' promise: mouse cells with a mutation in the same gene as that in the ALS patient seemed to reflect the disease. When differentiated into neurons and compared with neurons made from normal stem cells, those that carried the mutation didn't survive as well as those that did not carry it, says Eggan, who is now using the cells to screen potential new drugs for ALS. "These approaches would be much more powerful if we could do them with actual patient cells," he says.

The cells should also allow scientists to test specific theories of ALS. For example, in the mouse experiments, the researchers found that another type of neural cell, known as an astrocyte, seemed to produce a toxin that harmed motor neurons. "We're curious to see if we can make astrocytes from stem cells and if they also have this toxic effect," says Eggan.

The cell donor in this research has a rare, familial form of ALS linked to a specific genetic variation. Scientists are now trying to derive stem cells from a patient with the more-common sporadic form of ALS, as well as from a healthy control donor, in order to compare healthy and diseased cells.

Eggan first set out to create patient-specific stem cells more than two years ago using therapeutic cloning. In that technique, DNA from an adult cell is inserted into an egg whose DNA has been removed. The egg begins to develop as a normal embryo would, and scientists harvest stem cells after a few days. However, human eggs proved extremely hard to find: Eggan's group, which is still pursuing cloning, has received eggs from only one donor to date. No one has yet produced stem cells from human therapeutic cloning.

Desalination made simpler

Streamlining desalination: Researcher Ho Bum Park holds two samples of the chlorine-tolerant desalination membrane. The one on the left is one-tenth of a micrometer thick and is made of a porous support with a thin coating of the membrane. The blue membrane is about 50 micrometers thick. Credit: Beverly Barrett/University of Texas at Austin

Getting access to drinking water is a daily challenge for more than one billion people in the world. Desalination may help relieve such water-stressed populations by filtering salt from abundant seawater, and there are more than 7,000 desalination plants worldwide, 250 operating in the United States alone. However, the membranes that these plants use to filter out salt tend to break down when exposed to an essential ingredient in the process: chlorine.

Now researchers at the University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin) and Virginia Polytechnic Institute have engineered a chlorine-tolerant membrane that filters out salt just as well as many commercial membranes. The researchers say that such a membrane would eliminate expensive steps in the desalination process and eventually be used to filter salt out of seawater. The results of their study appear in the most recent issue of the journal Angewandte Chemie.

The majority of desalination plants today use polyamide membranes to effectively separate salt from seawater. Since seawater harbors a variety of organisms that can form a thick film over membranes and clog the filter, plants use chlorine to disinfect incoming water before it is sent through membranes. The problem is, these membranes degrade after continuous chlorine exposure. So the desalination industry added another step, quickly dechlorinating water after it's been treated with chlorine and before it's run through the membrane. Once the water has been desalinated, chlorine is added again, before the water enters the drinking-water supply.

Benny Freeman, a professor of chemical engineering at UT Austin, says that a chlorine-tolerant membrane may help significantly streamline the desalination process. Freeman and James McGrath, a professor of chemistry at Virginia Polytechnic Institute, engineered a water-filtering membrane that stands up to repeated exposures of chlorine.

The new membrane is made from polysulfone, a sulfur-containing thermoplastic that is highly resistant to chlorine. Previous researchers have attempted to design chlorine-tolerant membranes using polysulfone but have been hampered because the material is extremely hydrophobic, and doesn't easily let water through. Scientists have tried to chemically alter the polymer's composition by adding hydrophilic, or water-attracting, compounds. However, timing is everything, and Freeman says that when researchers add such compounds after they synthesize the polymer, "eventually, you break the backbone of the polymer chain . . . to the point where it's not useful."

Instead, Freeman and McGrath added two hydrophilic, charged sulfonic acid groups during the polymerization process and found that they were able to synthesize a durable and reproducible polymer. They then performed a variety of experiments to gauge the material's ability to tolerate chlorine and filter out salt, compared with commercial membranes.

First, the team carried out salt permeability tests, measuring the amount of salt passing through a membrane in a given amount of time. The less salt found in the filtered water, the better. Freeman and McGrath found that the new membrane performed just as well as many commercial membranes in filtering out water with low to medium salt content. For saltier samples comparable to seawater, the team's membrane was slightly less permeable.

"We have materials that are competitive today with existing nano filtration and some of the brackish water membranes," says Freeman. "We are now pushing the chemistry to get further into the seawater area, which is a significant market we'd like to access."

The researchers also tested the polymer's chlorine sensitivity. They found that, after exposure to concentrated solutions of chlorine for more than 35 hours, the new membrane suffered little change in composition, compared with commercial polyamide membranes, which were "eaten away by the chlorine."

Currently, Freeman and his colleagues are further manipulating the polymer composition to try to tune various properties, in hopes of designing a more selective and chlorine-resistant membrane. They are also in talks with a leading manufacturer of desalination membranes, with the goal of bringing the new membrane to market.

"These membranes may represent a reasonable route to commercialization," says Freeman. "If we're successful, we'll have the possibility of basically making these membranes on the same equipment that people use today."

Eric Hoek, an assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of California, Los Angeles, works on engineering new desalination membranes at the California Nanosystems Institute. He says that the chlorine-tolerant membrane developed by Freeman's team may be a promising alternative to today's industrial counterparts.

"This work is among the most innovative and interesting research on membrane materials in the past decade," says Hoek. "While the chlorine tolerance exhibited by these membranes is impressive, the basic separation performance is not yet where it needs to be for these materials to be touted as immediate replacements of commercial seawater membrane technology."

Solar Power Storage breakthrough

Splitting water: Daniel Nocera poses with a device for breaking down water into hydrogen and oxygen. The device uses an inexpensive catalyst that he has developed. Credit: Donna Coveney, MIT

Multimedia Watch Daniel Nocera explain how his catalyst can be used to store sunlight.

Researchers have made a major advance in inorganic chemistry that could lead to a cheap way to store energy from the sun. In so doing, they have solved one of the key problems in making solar energy a dominant source of electricity.

Daniel Nocera, a professor of chemistry at MIT, has developed a catalyst that can generate oxygen from a glass of water by splitting water molecules. The reaction frees hydrogen ions to make hydrogen gas. The catalyst, which is easy and cheap to make, could be used to generate vast amounts of hydrogen using sunlight to power the reactions. The hydrogen can then be burned or run through a fuel cell to generate electricity whenever it's needed, including when the sun isn't shining.

Solar power is ultimately limited by the fact that the solar cells only produce their peak output for a few hours each day. The proposed solution of using sunlight to split water, storing solar energy in the form of hydrogen, hasn't been practical because the reaction required too much energy, and suitable catalysts were too expensive or used extremely rare materials. Nocera's catalyst clears the way for cheap and abundant water-splitting technologies.

Nocera's advance represents a key discovery in an effort by many chemical research groups to create artificial photosynthesis--mimicking how plants use sunlight to split water to make usable energy. "This discovery is simply groundbreaking," says Karsten Meyer, a professor of chemistry at Friedrich Alexander University, in Germany. "Nocera has probably put a lot of researchers out of business." For solar power, Meyer says, "this is probably the most important single discovery of the century."

The new catalyst marks a radical departure from earlier attempts. Researchers, including Nocera, have tried to design molecular catalysts in which the location of each atom is precisely known and the catalyst is made to last as long as possible. The new catalyst, however, is amorphous--it doesn't have a regular structure--and it's relatively unstable, breaking down as it does its work. But the catalyst is able to constantly repair itself, so it can continue working.

In his experimental system, Nocera immerses an indium tin oxide electrode in water mixed with cobalt and potassium phosphate. He applies a voltage to the electrode, and cobalt, potassium, and phosphate accumulate on the electrode, forming the catalyst. The catalyst oxidizes the water to form oxygen gas and free hydrogen ions. At another electrode, this one coated with a platinum catalyst, hydrogen ions form hydrogen gas. As it works, the cobalt-based catalyst breaks down, but cobalt and potassium phosphate in the solution soon re-form on the electrode, repairing the catalyst.

Nocera created the catalyst as part of a research program whose goal was to develop artificial photosynthesis that works more efficiently than photosynthesis and produces useful fuels, such as hydrogen. Nocera has solved one of the most challenging parts of artificial photosynthesis: generating oxygen from water. Two more steps remain. One is replacing the expensive platinum catalyst for making hydrogen from hydrogen ions with a catalyst based on a cheap and abundant metal, as Nocera has done with the oxygen catalyst.

Finding a cheaper catalyst for making hydrogen shouldn't be too difficult, says John Turner, a principal investigator at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, in Golden, CO. Indeed, Nocera says that he has promising new materials that might work, and other researchers also have likely candidates. The second remaining step in artificial photosynthesis is developing a material that absorbs sunlight, generating the electrons needed to power the water-splitting catalysts. That will allow Nocera's catalyst to run directly on sunlight; right now, it runs on electricity taken from an outlet.

There's also still much engineering work to be done before Nocera's catalyst is incorporated into commercial devices. It will, for example, be necessary to improve the rate at which his catalyst produces oxygen. Nocera and others are confident that the engineering can be done quickly because the catalyst is easy to make, allowing a lot of researchers to start working with it without delay. "The beauty of this system is, it's so simple that many people can immediately jump on it and make it better," says Thomas Moore, a professor of chemistry and biochemistry at Arizona State University.

Almost Forgot- Dog Days of Summer Van Damme Friday

The Future of Drug Testing

New nanoscale anti-doping technology to sniff human growth hormone in urine

By Brett Zarda Posted 07.30.2008 at 10:34 am 1 Comment

Growth Hormone: Photo by Rombik

Virginia company Ceres Nanosciences claims it has the first drug test capable of detecting human growth hormone in an athlete's urine. Validation of the test will require at least six months, meaning cheaters in the 2008 Olympics need not be concerned. The test claims it could detect HGH usage up to two weeks prior to testing, unlike blood tests, which can monitor only the past 48 hours.

"Hundreds of people and millions of dollars in research have been involved in trying to find HGH in urine, and no one has been able to do it," said anti-doping expert Don Catlin to the Associated Press. "This particular method has the potential -- I'm not saying it does it, but the potential -- to be a big step. It's delightful. It could be a quantum leap forward."

The Ceres method relies on nanoparticles, originally developed for cancer research purposes, that can capture microscopic elements in fluid. With player's unions opposed to blood testing, the development could add actually add some teeth to the currently just symbolic ban on HGH.

Unemployment at 4 year high

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Employers trimmed jobs once again in July and the unemployment rate hit a four-year high, according to a government report Friday that showed the seventh straight month of job losses .

The Labor Department reported a net loss of 51,000 jobs in the month, compared to a revised loss of 51,000 jobs in June. Economists surveyed by Briefing.com had been forecasting a loss of 75,000 jobs in the latest report.

The unemployment rate edged up to 5.7% from a 5.5% reading in June. It was the worst reading since March 2004, and slightly worse than economists' forecast of a 5.6% rate.

The rate has now jumped a full percentage point from a year ago.

Beijing bugs

Senator Suspects Beijing Bugs

Reports indicate that the Chinese government is planning to spy on its Olympic guests

By Brett Zarda Posted 07.30.2008 at 11:10 am 3 Comments

Beijing Swimming Center: Photo by angus_mac_123 (CC Licensed)

How do you say "Big Brother" in Chinese? Visitors to the Beijing Olympics need to be careful what they email (and what websites they peruse) according to Senator Sam Brownback, the senior Republican from Kansas. Based on hotel documents, Brownback alleges that the Chinese government has spent millions of dollars installing spy software in major hotel chains to monitor its guests' email and web surfing.

"The Chinese government has put in place a system to spy on and gather information about every guest at hotels where Olympic visitors are staying," said Brownback.

With blogging now allowed by the International Olympic Committee, the Chinese may have plenty to monitor.

It's just the latest example of the Chinese government keeping a close eye on the Olympics. Tickets to the opening ceremony are embedded with RFID tags that hold personal information intended to verify the identity of spectator, minimize scalping and keep away protestors.

Bees can help catch serial killers

Geographic profiling techniques can be used to hunt for psychopaths or for bees

By Sam Barrett Posted 07.30.2008 at 4:38 pm 2 Comments

Bee and Flower: Photo by aussiegall (CC Licensed)

Bumblebees are being used to help capture serial killers -- and not by being trained to find and sting the culprits. Researchers have found that by analyzing a bee's geographic pattern as it goes around poking into flowers, they can deduce where the bee lives.

In an effort to refine the geographic profiling technique used to capture serial killers, scientists from Queen Mary's School of Biological and Chemical Sciences in London tested the technique on bumblebees. Using computer model simulations to study the foraging habits of bees allowed researchers to distinguish between different types of foraging behavior.

The experiments highlight the two aspects on which geographic profiling relies: the fact that serial crimes happen near the killer's home; and that the home is surrounded by a buffer zone, an area close to home where a crime has a low probability of being committed.

During the experiments, researchers observed that bees did not visit flowers near the hive, creating a similar buffer zone. Most likely, the bees' buffer zone is used to keep predators and parasites from easily locating the hive. Predators don't use computer models, though, and we do: by studying the distribution of the flowers the bees visited beyond the buffer zone, and using geographic profiling techniques akin to the ones used to track killers, researchers were able to find the entrance to the hive.

Say hello to Ovi

Nokia's new media syncing tool shows promise

By John Brandon Posted 07.31.2008 at 6:05 pm 0 Comments

Ovi: Photo by Nokia

Ready for a rat's nest de-tangler? Nokia's Ovi.com service, set to debut in a few months, intends to reach into the myriad of digital files on your computer, sync them to an online portal, and make them available on your Nokia phone -– any time, from anywhere.

What I like about the concept is the simplicity: the Nokia N95 smartphone I'm testing and my Lenovo laptop live on separate islands, but Ovi.com will allow me to automatically sync files and access them from my phone. The alternative, which is a bit nightmarish, is to sync manually every time I connect my phone over Bluetooth or USB. And, for the past several years, that's exactly what cell phone makers have expected me to do. It's rife with problems: Bluetooth requires a passcode, USB cables from various phones are incompatible with each other, and I'm constantly running out of phone memory space.

The service will work with music files, documents, and photos. The music sync option is compelling: it means any MP3 track I rip to my computer will be accessible from my phone. Of course, that's true now for photos if I use Flickr or one of a multitude of photo-hosting services. For documents, Ovi supports Microsoft Word file, PDF, and text files -– anything a Nokia phone can open.

There are two major caveats. One is that the service only works with Nokia phones, so if you use a BlackBerry, the Apple iPhone, or a Windows Mobile device, you are out of luck. Second, while the syncing apparently works without a lot of fuss, you do need to sync files to your phone to play them. So, while you have eternal access to all of your media and documents, you still need to connect up over a fast cellular or Wi-Fi connection (which the N95 supports) to use the media.

Still, I'm all for a service that at least tries to solve the digital crisis in my life -– the mess of files I have spread over several hard disks and a server in my home. From here, Ovi looks promising and innovative.

GM posts monster loss!

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- General Motors reported a huge second-quarter net loss Friday of $15.5 billion after restructuring and other charges.

The automaker lost $27.33 per share in the quarter, compared to a profit of $784 million, or $1.37 per share, a year ago.

Even factoring out those charges, GM posted a stunning $6.3 billion loss on operations. That works out to $11.21 per share, far above the $2.62-a-share loss projected by Thomson Reuters.

Last year, the company earned $1.3 billion on that basis, or $2.29 per share, as it attempted to turn around years of losses.

GM (GM, Fortune 500) stock fell 7.5% in pre-market trading.

The automaker posted revenue of $37.7 billion from auto operations, down from $45.8 billion a year ago.

Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters were expecting revenue of $44.6 billion.

The lost revenue was likely due to a significant decline in vehicle sales. GM sold nearly 5% fewer vehicles this quarter than it did over the same time last year.

U.S. sales took the biggest hit, falling 21%, although foreign sales rose 7%.

In a press release, GM said its results were impacted by $9.1 billion of predominantly non-cash special items.

It named strikes, labor cutbacks, and actions to reduce vehicle output as main reasons for the loss.

"As our recent product, capacity and liquidity actions clearly demonstrate, we are reacting rapidly to the challenges facing the U.S. economy and auto market, and we continue to take the aggressive steps necessary to transform our U.S. operations," GM Chief Executive Rick Wagoner said in a statement.

"We have the right plan for GM, driven by great products, building strong brands, fuel-economy technology leadership and taking full advantage of global growth opportunities," he added.

GM has now lost money in four of the last five quarters.

The auto industry as a whole has struggled recently as high gas prices and a weak economy have kept customers at home.

Last week, Ford Motor Co. (F, Fortune 500) reported the largest quarterly loss in its 105-year history. On Thursday, Standard & Poor's Ratings Services cut its ratings for all three domestic automakers further into junk status.

GM is attempting to get back on its feet after striking key wage and healthcare deals with its labor force last fall.

But critics have said the recent steps GM has taken to right itself - which included cutting 6,100 jobs and reducing its vehicle output by 117,000 - are not bold enough. What the company really needs to do, they say, is eliminate dealerships, vehicle lines and even whole brands.

GM, long the world's largest automaker, was outsold by Toyota in the first six months of this year, and experts say the Japanese automaker could overtake GM in worldwide sales for all of 2008

Lexus ISF vs. the Germans

The face-off between ultra-capable small sports sedans from Mercedes-Benz and BMW is nothing new. As you likely know, the original M3 and the Cosworth-powered 190E 2.3-16V started one of the most heated rivalries in auto-racing history, each company countering the other with more power, more speed, and bigger, wilder spoilers. When the 190E became the C-class, AMG took over where the Cosworth car left off and both manufacturers stepped up to six-cylinder engines. For 2008, the fight gets a few more firsts. The BMW has its first V-8 and the Mercedes, well, it promises to be more than a straight-line muscle car for the first time since AMG started tweaking the C.

Neither of those things is as headline-worthy as this: Finally, Japan has an honest-to-goodness answer to Germany's legends. The IS-F has been a glint in Lexus' engineers' eyes ever since the company commissioned Rod Millen to squeeze an LS430's V-8 into the first-generation IS for the 2003 SEMA show. And now here it is, complete with a punchlist of Lexus-like one-upsmanship. With 416 hp, it tops the M3 by a deliberate two horses. With an eight-speed transmission, it out-gears the Mercedes by one. Then there are the massive stacked exhaust outlets, but they speak for themselves. (They ask, "Why?") Still, we're skeptical. Can Lexus really crank a jar of wasabi out of the vanilla factory?

To answer that question we've rounded up a BMW M3 sedan, a Mercedes-Benz C63 AMG, and the new Lexus IS-F for an afternoon of hot laps at Autobahn Country Club's south track in Joliet, Illinois. To mix it up a bit, we've brought along a special guest — Andy Miodynski, one of the top salesmen from McGrath Lexus, the brand's biggest dealership in the Chicago area. Andy isn't your average Lexus salesman; he's a true car enthusiast. He has track hours on his IS-F, and his Fox-body Ford Mustang lifts its front tires waist-high before launching down the quarter-mile. Just ask to see his cell phone pics. His role here is specific — if he can't walk away praising the IS-F after driving the other two cars, how can we?

At First Glance

For how evil this trio looks, each also has a visual shortcoming or two. The M3 has too many extraneous vents on its fenders and hood, while the IS-F just has too much hood in general. Also, the stacked exhaust outlets aren't actually connected to the exhaust system. We hoped this was a pre-production issue, but we reached under one right on the dealership floor to confirm the oddity. The most common complaint about the C63 around the office was that it simply has too much going on at the front end, even if the twin veins traversing the hood are a cool homage to the 300SL Gullwing.

Inside, all three practice more subtlety. Changes across the group are limited to new gauge clusters, higher-quality trim, and more supportive seats. The Lexus takes the prize for coolest cabin material with its "aluminized composite accents;" a set of shiny silver carbon-fiber panels on the console and dash. Its special sport seats are comfortable but turn spongy under heavy lateral loads. The M3's seats, on the other hand, are plenty firm but could use deeper bolsters. Other than some more intricate stitching patterns, they don't offer much more — especially in thigh and side support — than the sport seats offered in pedestrian 3-series models. The M3's thick leather steering wheel is the best of the group, though, and it's held together with tri-color M thread. The strength of the C63's cabin has to be its seats, because nothing else is upgraded from the C350. Luckily, the seats are very good. The leather is extra soft and the bolsters might be cut deeper than any other production car out there. Not only that, there's an adjustment to squeeze the sides in or out depending on how many cheeseburgers you've eaten that week.

Outside the Circuit

Before we even pile into the three cars to head for the track, our Lexus boy has his opinion of the M3. "That engine's too peaky. It isn't even fun." We can see where he comes from, but the M3 is like a seven-layer dip and he's writing it off as a bowl of refried beans. BMW has offered up a complex, multi-faceted approach to the sports sedan, but yes, it is a bit underwhelming in normal driving conditions. The engine lacks power under 4000 rpm, and there's just too much refinement dialed into the chassis, especially with our electronic damping control-equipped model. Set it to the softest setting, turn off the "power" button (which doesn't actually alter power levels as it does in the M5, but instead dials back throttle response), and short shift the transmission, and you may as well be driving a 328i with a silly bulge in the hood. The everyday experience is a far cry from the homologation specials of the past, but the tame manners should appeal to more mainstream buyers. And yet, with every on-ramp stomp of the throttle, it's obvious that the M3 is crying for a racetrack. There, it's a whole different car.

If the M3 feels relaxed on the road, the IS-F feels removed from it. A second air intake opens up with a wail at just over 3000 rpm, but those sorts of engine speeds don't come readily. The combination of impressive low-end torque and an eight-speed transmission keep the engine turning modestly, and there's hardly ever space on our way to the track to really work the higher range of the tach. Otherwise, acceleration, braking, and steering inputs are smooth and linear, as if the car is merely a shrunken-down LS460. Our only complaint is the way its suspension rebounds in quick, elastic jolts rather than the smoother, fluid recovery exhibited by both Germans.

Mercedes-Benz has put together the most entertaining road car of the bunch, and by a huge margin. It feels as if the AMG engineers took the innocent little C-class and gave it the soul of a NASCAR racer. All 443 lb-ft of torque produced by the 6.2-liter V-8 goes right to the ground in a mess of tire smoke, exhaust noise, and uncontrollable, maniacal laughter. The quick steering and lively suspension of the C63 are also the most enjoyable on normal roads and the 7-speed "Speedshift" automatic blips the throttle for downshifts. Pulling into Autobahn Country Club, it's our early favorite and even Andy likes it: "The power is really impressive and it sounds so mean. But the M3 still doesn't impress me. It is just a normal 3-series under 5000 rpm."

Track Time

The noise each car makes as it leaves pit lane is a good early indicator of its track behavior. The M3 lets loose with a mechanical harmony that grows sharper and sharper, just as the car itself gets better with more speed. Piloting the IS-F, the monotone whoosh of intake noise is predominant, hinting at the car's smooth but less communicative character. Then there's the C63, an exhaust-note hero. The burbles and barks of four massive tailpipes foretell the car's raucous power and unruly manners. Let's start with that one while it still has tires left.

We fell in love with the CLK63 AMG Black Series last summer, and it is no coincidence that the C63 feels similar to that car. In search of the same handling characteristics, the AMG crew pushed the C63's hand-built V-8 rearward by two inches and down just a touch from where the stock V-6 would sit. The front track is 35-mm wider and the three-link front suspension borrows geometry from the Black Series. The result is crisp, direct turn-in feel that pays dividends when the rear steps out (and it will). Precise corrections are easy because the steering wheel has the ability to calculate exactly at which angle the front tires are pointing. But that quality is almost a necessity considering the way this car acts out on a track. Leave stability control on and it'll cut in at nearly every corner exit. Turn it off, and the C63 is a lesson in finesse. Braking must all be done early and in a straight line in order for the car to turn in tidily. The AMG doesn't respond well to late lifts or trail braking. On the exit, you need to ease gradually back onto the throttle or be prepared to catch the rear tires before the outer one slips off the curbing.

While the C63 demands concentration on the track, turning fast lap times is a challenge. Clean laps in it require more concentration and more effort than in the other two cars, and that can be exhausting for both the car and driver. Before our day is over, the Merc's differential burps from exhaustion and the resulting cloud of diff oil smoke gets us black-flagged.

What never flagged was the C63's 7-speed manumatic. In manual mode, the Lexus 8-speed box is slightly quicker and smoother, but the AMG-tuned unit performs better when it's thinking for itself. Left in auto mode, it foresees downshifts, self-blips the throttle, and always seems to find the right gear.

But who would settle for seven forward cogs when one could have eight? Lexus originally developed its 8-speed automatic to fight a different crowd of Germans — the Audi A8, the BMW 7-series, and the Mercedes-Benz S-class. In the LS460, it provides quick, smooth acceleration and best-in-class fuel economy. Expecting that same gearbox to fight in this crowd was an enormous gamble, but a lot of changes were made to make it a safe one. In gears 2-8, the torque converter is locked up and taken out of the equation for greater efficiency in power delivery. A high-flow solenoid works with IS-F–specific shift programming to change gears in just 0.1 seconds, only five hundredths of a second slower than a Formula 1 transmission. When controlled via two steering wheel-mounted paddles, it's the most impressive automatic we've ever driven. Shifts feel as urgent and seamless as in any dual-clutch gearbox we've used, so they don't upset the chassis and hardly disturb power delivery. However, Lexus's programming isn't as clairvoyant as AMG's. In full automatic mode, it holds a higher gear through corners and doesn't downshift without heavy throttle inputs. Normal "drive" is best left out on the street.

In full manual mode, the IS-F's transmission won't upshift automatically at redline as in many cars, including the Mercedes. While we respect Lexus for that decision, it's problematic for first-time drivers of the car. With a helmet on, the 5.0-liter V-8's overwhelming intake noise never changes its tone, so there's no audible warning to shift, other than a short beep that chimes in too late. A hard rev limiter cuts in abruptly as if to signify an epic fail. Luckily, most of the IS-F's power lives lower in the range, so shifting early as a preventative measure doesn't hurt lap times.

Going into a corner in the IS-F also requires a complete brain reflash after spending time in the C63. Rather than being prone to massive oversteer, the Lexus' front tires give way first and the car pushes wide. Part of this, Andy confirms for us, is because of our car's Bridgestone Potenzas. Lexus chose to offer two stock tire choices, our Bridgestones and a set of Michelin Pilot Sport 2s, with the latter being the stickier option. Getting those tires is all just luck of the draw, but we're told some of the car's more discerning buyers have demanded to have their tires swapped out for the better PS2s.

Though the car does understeer, the chassis can be manipulated by throttle and brake inputs to move toward neutrality and even beyond it to power oversteer. It just doesn't do so as naturally as the other two cars. Come into the corner hot, using trail braking to load up the front suspension and make the tires bite in. That will lighten the rear, which lets the car rotate slightly. Then get back on the throttle early, letting a wave of torque push the rear back out at the exit. The IS-F never tries to snap around, but provides a smooth and predictable drift that's held by a steering system that weights up progressively but lacks feel compared to the Mercedes and BMW.

The IS-F and the C63 perform like polar opposites of each other at Autobahn, but the M3 on the circuit is the opposite of itself on the street. There's evidence of this duality throughout the car and we see it as BMW's attempt to draw in new customers without alienating the car's fan base. It's the reasoning behind developing the optional three-mode electronic dampers, adding a button to sharpen steering and throttle responses, and developing an engine that's tame at low revs and a monster up around its 8300-rpm redline. The same logic seems to be at work behind BMW's new M-DCT dual-clutch transmission, which we unfortunately couldn't arrange for this test in sedan form. Instead, our M3 packs the lone six-speed manual offered among this bunch.

Out where speed limits and traffic aren't factors, the high-revving 4.0-liter V-8 comes alive, spinning to 8300 rpm — 1500 rpm faster than the other two cars. The power from 5000 rpm on up is thrilling and relentless, and the engine sounds like it was boosted right from a Sauber F1 car. A 12.5:1 steering ratio provides quick and direct turn-in that's complemented by a chassis that, when pushed hard, is just as sharp. However, the M3 is the least predictable at its limit. A few degrees of oversteer turns to 180-degree spin without warning.

As different as the characters of these three cars are, they share some commonalities beyond the fact that they're all stupid fast. Like the brakes, which all smoke and get hard to find through the day but never disappear. They all exhibit similar feel and similar power, and they also all share a front rotor diameter of 14.2 inches. Rear brakes range from 13.0 inches on the Mercedes to 13.8 inches on the BMW. The latter seems to have marginally more stopping power left at the end of the day, despite single-piston front and rear calipers (the IS-F uses 6 and 2, and the C63 uses 6 and 4, respectively.) But all are thoroughly impressive.

At the end of the day our quickest lap times are close, but in the order we expect. The M3 turned the best time, at 1:41.8. The C63's top time was 0.8 seconds slower at 1:42.6, with the IS-F running an even one second slower still. With better tires, the Lexus may have jumped a rung in the rankings. Even as they stand here, the close times make it hard to argue objectively for any of the three cars.

Afterthoughts

So don't be disappointed if we don't place the cars in a neat little order, with one losing, one winning, and one just sitting in the middle somewhere. As the track times attest, it isn't that easy, especially with a Lexus salesman offering me a hot lease rate if I pick his IS-F. Here's his argument:

"I'll admit that all three of the cars are amazing in their own way. The C63 is for the street, but isn't set up for the track. The M3 is awesome for the track, but boring on the street. The IS-F is a nice balance of the two vehicles and types of driving. It really can hang with the best of them on the street and holds its own on the track."

Gee, what a shocker. The Lexus guy likes the Lexus best. What's next? Popes in funny hats? At least he didn't tell us that the IS-F could fly to the moon and back while fondling our manhood and returning 200 mpg — Andy is too honest, if still slightly biased. The best choice, however, does depend on what you're looking to get out of your $60,000 super sedan.

The BMW M3 is for the enthusiast who appreciates heritage and race-bred engineering. It has the most direct controls, the sharpest chassis, and the most high-strung engine. It's for the guy who's out to set lap records and has the time, money, and skill to do so. It's also for the track star who wants a complete escape from the intensity back on public streets, or simply gets enough track time that public roads aren't worth exploiting. But thanks to its split personality, it's also for the guy who wants to pretend to be that guy. And with stability control and its impressive drivability, the wannabe's lap times probably won't be terribly far behind.

The Mercedes-Benz C63 AMG is the entertainer of the group and, as such, it isn't for people who take life too seriously. The car's lap times will always fall a second or two behind the BMW's, but the extra time on the stopwatch will be worth it. For the other 340 days a year when you're not at a track, it's the most comfortable and the most fun to drive, not to mention it that it looks and sounds like it means business. And with one of the silkiest V-8s on the market, it truly does. The C63 is the car this writer would buy if he had the means.

That leaves the newcomer from Lexus, which, fittingly, is the best choice for track-day newcomers or casual enthusiasts. The car is an amazing first effort that needs better tires and better chassis control. It isn't as frenetic on-track as the M3 but it isn't as subdued on public roads. At the same time, it doesn't appeal to our inner child in either setting like the C63 does. It'll win most stoplight drag races and it'll turn respectable track times, but it's tuned for safety and won't bite. It sounds cool, looks flashy, and has a fantastic Mark Levinson sound system. Do those things top your requirements? The IS-F is for you. Andy's accepting orders now.

Volkswagen Jetta TDI cup

When Liam Kenney was five years old, his dad took him to the Long Beach Grand Prix partly in an effort to see the Champ Car star Paul Tracy, who young Liam had begun to idolize as his favorite driver.

His dad was able to flag Tracy down and asked if he would speak to Liam. Tracy -- one of the biggest names in racing at the time -- agreed, and spent several minutes with the wide-eyed youngster. From that day forward, Liam, now a competitor in Volkswagen's inaugural Jetta TDI Cup, became a race car driver.

"He was so good, so kind, he got down on his knees and talked with him," says Paul Kenney of his son's initial encounter with Tracy. "He's been hooked ever since. We tried to get him to play soccer, do other things, but this is his passion, his dream, and we are blessed in that respect."

I caught up with Kenney, now 16, and his father at the third round of the TDI Cup at Portland International Raceway where I got a chance check out what the series and the diesel Jetta race car (we'll have more on the car soon) are all about.

An eight-race series where 30 drivers duke it out in identically-prepped Jettas based largely on the 2009 Volkwagen Jetta TDI you'll see soon in VW showrooms, the TDI Cup was created in large part to help young drivers like Kenney achieve bigger and better things in motorsport, as well as to build awareness for VW's next-generation clean diesel efforts.

Chosen after an extensive vetting process from an initial pool of some 900 candidates (only drivers age 16 to 26 are eligible), Kenny and his 29 fellow competitors in the Jetta TDI Cup are essentially a part of one big factory race team. For an initial buy in of $35,000, each driver gets his own Jetta Cup car for the season, world class instruction and support from Volkswagen factory drivers and technicians, along with other skills coaching such as the art of wooing sponsors, media relations, and fitness training.

"They give us all the basic pieces, but it's up to us to make something of it," says Kenney, an energetic, articulate teen with bright-blue eyes, blonde-streaked hair, and a race driver's prototype build.

The SCCA Pro Racing sanctioned series is modeled after Volkswagen's successful Polo Cup in Europe. Only tire pressures allowed to be adjusted and cars are swapped randomly among drivers as the season wears on. Winners receive $1000 for each race and points are awarded, with the champion scoring a cool $100,000 along with the possibility of getting an extra $150,000 if they are signed to a racing team. All drivers will likely get an SCCA pro license after the season concludes. Smack up your car bad enough though, and you will pay for damages on a sliding scale.

Volkswagen hopes to expand the program to 10 races next season and is already taking applications. At Portland, at least, the overall effort looked to be well run and organized, especially for a series in its first year. In a further effort to promote a green theme (what company isn't nowadays), hospitality services and other elements of VW's race weekend presence are designed with the goal of reducing the company's carbon footprint to say, a Size 6. The season is being chronicled by Speed and a will eventually air on the network.

The TDI Cup drivers come from all over the country, including a couple from Canada and one from Mexico. Their backgrounds are varied. Some have extensive karting experience, others little more than two-wheeled motocross. Some have connections and come from moneyed backgrounds, others scrimped to come up with the cash to get into the Cup.

Kenney and his family, who now live in Virginia, have been hard at it for years and have sacrificed much - no boat, fancy car, lots of travel and long hours - to follow the dream. The TDI Cup is yet another step up the motorsports ladder for Kenney, who has already taken several. His first big-time racing experience was in the Snap-on Stars of Karting. Liam and his father got to know accomplished IRL driver Bryan Herta, one of the founders of the series along with the late Hollis Brown, another big influence.

It was Brown who helped young Liam get into his first 50cc kart. Brown was also instrumental in helping to set up a memorable track day with none other than Tracy in Las Vegas, where the Kenneys were living at the time and were often found at the Las Vegas Karting Center (now XPlex Las Vegas).

"Tracy came down to Vegas with his brand-new kart and raced with Liam," the elder Kenny recalls. "He told Liam to hold the line no matter what. Well, he held the line and put a donut in the side of Tracy's kart. I was scared to death I was going to have to pay him for the damage, but he just got out laughing. He said 'I told him to hold the line and he did.'"

Despite all the help and encouragement from Tracy and others, Kenney's step up to the Stars of Karting wasn't exactly smooth sailing. "We started out terribly and weren't prepared to run at the highest levels," Paul Kenney says.

But with more experience, and the help of Speed Secrets -- an organization that helps in part to improve a driver's mental approach to racing -- Kenney has dramatically improved as he's moved up. Last year, he drove a 2.0L Formula Renault car to multiple wins, one of which was at Portland, which he calls his "favorite track" after scoring his first victory in the Renault car there.

Moving from a 1000-lb, open-wheel car to a front-drive, diesel-powered 2844-lb sedan has obviously been an adjustment, but he says it hasn't been as difficult as he expected. "It's all come naturally, really," he says. Already a big fan of diesel-powered machines such as Audi's now legendary R10 LMP1 car (his goal is to not only race in, but win at Le Mans by age 21) he likes what the TDI Cup car has to offer. "It pulls like a beast all through the powerband," Kenney says, and he also likes the car's DSG transmission, which he says "is always there for you."

At the 1.977-mile Portland circuit, Kenney (who crashed at the first race at Virginia International Raceway and finished 10th at the second race at Mosport in Canada) qualified fourth and battled at the front during the entire 30-minute main event. It was an exciting race that found Kenney on two wheels at one point during a fierce battle that got especially hairy in the chicane after the track's front straight. Kenney led several laps and eventually finished on the podium in second.

The day after the race, Ryan Arciero, one of the Volkswagen Factory Drivers assigned to the TDI Cup, assessed the performance of the drivers so far: "Virginia was a disaster, and the guys were just trying to hang on at Mosport (it rained and the cars were on slicks), but it was much better here." Clearly, the guys are starting to get it.

Speaking of getting it, shortly after the race, a press release announcing Kenney's podium finish popped into my BlackBerry's e-mail box. He and his family know by now that success on the track is only one part of the equation.

Jaguar XKR-S

Jaguar's test facility is gigantic. Covering 2,000 square miles, it borders Snowdonia National Park, which sweeps alongside the rivers and craggy mountainsides of Wales.

These roads are purpose-built for fine-tuning cars. There are cambers, compressions and crests preserved within every road surface ever invented. Throw in unpredictable weather, kamikaze sheep and Jaguar's ace chassis engineer Mike Cross, and you begin to understand why the new 2009 Jaguar XKR-S is so brilliant.

But right now, Cross doesn't want to talk about the Jaguar. He's more interested in the Maserati Gran Turismo S we drove a couple days ago.

"How does it ride?" he asks us.

"What's the gearbox like?"

"The engine?"

Later we discover Jaguar has a Maserati Gran Turismo S on order. The team is clearly taking the Italian competitor very seriously indeed. So how does the XKR-S stack up?

A Rare Jaguar
Limited to just 200 units and available only in Europe, the 2009 Jaguar XKR-S has the Maserati beat in the exclusivity department, although at roughly $111,000 it's significantly less expensive than its $135,000 Italian rival.

The $18,000 premium over the standard XKR adds lightweight forged 20-inch wheels; upgraded brakes from Alcon, a racing specialist; suspension revisions; unique styling tweaks; and interior upgrades borrowed from the earlier Portfolio edition with soft-grain leather and a Bowers & Wilkins stereo.

There are no changes to the supercharged 4.2-liter V8, so it makes the same 420 horsepower and 413 pound-feet of torque as the standard XKR. Jaguar says the XKR-S is capable of zero to 60 mph in just 4.9 seconds, while the car's top speed has been raised from 155 mph to 174 mph.

Not Quicker, but Quick Enough
So the XKR-S is really an XKR equipped with an optional sports pack and while the wheels and aero mods will remain unique, you'll be able to spec the same brakes and suspension upgrades on a regular R.

There's really no need for an engine upgrade in the XKR-S anyway. It's still capable of melting the huge 295/30R20 rear tires with ease. Squeeze the accelerator a little more and the six-speed auto kicks down quickly, intensifying the supercharger's otherwise unobtrusive whine. From there it's a one-dimensional charge to the redline and it feels good every time.

An active exhaust system gives the XKR-S an appropriately rich sound, but it can't quite match the Maserati's more expressive normally aspirated V8. More important, the XKR-S is more than 200 pounds lighter and has more engine torque than its Italian rival. Slingshot out of hairpins and the Jag has an excess of power where the Maserati takes time to gather speed.

A Proper Automatic
Like the engine, the XKR-S's six-speed automatic transmission remains unchanged. It's a good call. The clumsier in-town progress of the Maserati's single-clutch automated manual is at odds with the refinement customers expect. The Jag's torque converter blurs the transitions between gear ratios more effectively and still offers shift paddles (attached to the steering wheel, not fixed on the column), and the smooth gearchanges are still quick enough when the mood takes you.

Unlike the Gran Turismo S, however, a pull on a paddle doesn't lock the XKR-S into manual mode. It will still kick down, still change up at the redline and quickly revert to auto mode if you stop making paddle inputs. It's an automatic, not an automated manual.

Getting Your Money's Worth
If it weren't for the revised suspension and upgraded brakes, the XKR-S would be a far more questionable purchase. New springs, stiffer antiroll bars, retuned dampers and a quicker steering ratio work with a recalibrated version of Jaguar's Computer Active Technology Suspension (CATS) to give the XKR-S its unique feel.

When you turn into a corner, you can feel the weightier steering effort, a by-product of changes to the front suspension's steering geometry. The steering is still fingertip light, but the quicker reactions give clearer feedback from the front end. When you travel over broken tarmac in the Maserati, you find it's pretty unyielding. Yet while the XKR-S is unmistakably stiffer, it remains supple. Wind the car out over these tricky Welsh roads and it becomes sensational. The standard car's slightly lolloping on-limit behavior is gone, as the R-S feels far better tied down over crests and more composed through compressions.

The more robust brake system is a noticeable improvement as well. Up front there are 15.7-inch rotors with six-piston calipers, while the rear end gets 13.8-inch discs with four-piston calipers. As good as the standard car's pedal feels, the XKR-S is even better, with a firmer pedal with a progressive bite and no apparent brake fade.

There's such highly detailed communication from the front end that you stop braking hard into corners and start working the tire grip more aggressively. You feel the weight build on the outside front tire, feel the light smudge of the rubber nudging into very mild understeer, then choose either to back off and ride it out or push through for oversteer.

With all the traction control systems off, you can go as hard as you want without ever questioning what's going on below. This experience bests the Maserati in both intuitive involvement and refinement.

Not Quite the Ultimate Jaguar, but Close
We did notice one obvious flaw: the 2009 Jaguar XKR-S does without a limited-slip differential. Floor it out of a hairpin and one tire bonfires.

Mike Cross points out that this is very rarely an issue on the road. But he also describes the XKR-S as "a road car you can take to the track." And what's the fun of a powerful rear-driver on track without a limited-slip diff?

We suspect that the folks at Jaguar are counting on the fact that those who are willing to fork over the extra cash for the XKR-S won't be too concerned. And they're probably right.

As much fun as this XK is to flog hard, it's the badges, both the growler on the front and the "XKR-S" plate on the back, that'll sell it. Too bad really, as it's one of the most engaging coupes in its class when the road gets twisty. Jaguar has no reason to fear its Maserati rival, because the XKR-S holds its own just fine.