For the R&D Magazine editors, this is both a busy and exciting time. Entries for the 2012 R&D 100 Awards are streaming in as the April 30 deadline approaches. We are fielding many questions about qualifying products, the entry process, and types of information that the judges seek. We also get a close look at the new technologies that are submitted into the competition, as well as the new companies from around the world that enter.

What happens after the entries are submitted? The editors and judges review all entries and select the top 100 technologies introduced in 2011 as 2012 R&D 100 Award winners. Winners will be notified in mid-June. The winning technologies will be announced publically in late June. A complete report, with profiles of all winning technologies, will be published in the September, 2012 print and digital issues of R&D Magazine.

The highlight of the R&D 100 Awards is annual R&D 100 Awards banquet, scheduled this year for Nov. 1, 2012 at the Renaissance Orlando at Sea World. The events include an exhibition of winning technologies, reception, and black tie gala where all winners are recognized on stage.

This year, the event takes on special meaning as R&D Magazine marks the 50th anniversary of the R&D 100 Awards. The awards were introduced in 1963 as the IR 100 by Industrial Research magazine—R&D Magazine’s name at that time. The archive of winners from the past 50 years illustrates advances and shifts in science, technology, society, politics, and even fashion. For example, a 1963 photo shows the judges meeting in the proverbial smoke-filled room. Today, judges from around the world review entries remotely, via the Internet.

In the December 2011 issue, the editors initiated at decade-by-decade review of the awards. Thus far, we have looked at the 1960s and 1970s. The 1980s will be revealed in the April issue.  

At this year’s R&D 100 awards banquet, the editors will recognize the past achievements by individuals and organizations, and review the impact on science, technology, and society. We’ve been busy updating our records from past winners and searching for old photos, records, and details about winning technologies and the research teams behind them. We welcome contributions from past winners. Send your story, old photos, and memories to RDeditors@advantagemedia.com.

Procrastination is a common human condition. What student has not finished a homework assignment on the morning school bus ride? The malls are not jammed on Christmas Eve because people want to go for a stroll. Even the post office stays open late on tax day to accommodate last minute filers.

This time of year, the editors of R&D Magazine witness another type of last minute rush: Submissions for the R&D 100 Awards. Due to multiple requests for more time, we have extended the submission deadline for the 2012 R&D 100 Awards to April 30, 2012, at 11:59 pm, eastern U.S. time. This is the FINAL DEADLINE. We cannot accept entries after that time.

The entry application does require an investment of time and effort to document the qualifications of the technology. This project cannot be completed at the last minute. We recommend that you get started today.

Over the years, the editors of R&D Magazine have read thousands of entries and answered thousands of questions. Here’s some advice for completing your entry.

Editor’s Advice No. 1: The entry is a written document, (typically 10 to 20 pages in length) that details development history, primary functions, methods of operation, scientific theories behind the technology, the materials, composition, construction, or mechanism of action, and product price. Supporting information—scientific papers, images, videos, testimonials—is encouraged.

Editors' Advice No. 2: Answer all of the questions in a clear, concise, and objective manner. Do not write the entry as an advertisement or marketing brochure. Write the document as an informative, scientific report that will be read by very busy judges.

Editor’s Advice No. 3:One of the most important elements of an R&D 100 entry is the Product Comparison. This section should show, in table form, how your product compares to existing products in crucial technology areas. This section should give the judges a quick overview of how your product beats the competition.

Editor’s Advice No. 4: The judges also want to know a product's limitations. If you say the product has no shortcomings, expect the judges to be skeptical about your entry.

Editor’s Advice No. 5: Lots of people wait until the last minute, causing a an upload traffic jam as the deadline approaches. To ensure a smooth entry process, enter early!

Qualification
The competition is open to any new technical product or process that was launched—first available for purchase or licensing—between Jan. 1, 2011, and Dec. 31, 2011. Proof-of-concept prototypes do not qualify; the submitted entry must be in working, marketable condition. Products requiring regulatory approval, such as drugs and medical devices, must have completed all trials and received approval for marketing by a governing regulatory authority such as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration or international counterparts.

Benefits of winning an R&D 100 Award
Winning an R&D 100 Award can provide a new product with important benefits:

• Publication of product description on www.rdmag.com
• Profile of the winning technology in the special commemorative R&D 100 Awards issue of R&D Magazine, published in September 2012
• Presentation of the award at R&D 100 Awards Banquet, a black-tie gala on Nov. 1, 2012 at the Renaissance SeaWorld Orlando Resort Hotel in Orlando, Fla.
• Winners gain the important initial push to compete in the marketplace.
• The award provides a mark of excellence known to industry, government, and consumers.

To Enter
Entrants must download an official 2012 R&D 100 AWARDS ENTRY FORM from the R&D 100 Awards section of our Website. Complete the form and provide documented evidence of the science, materials, and mechanics supporting the technology. The awards are open to industry, academia, and government-sponsored research.

For complete details, more tips, and information about the awards, view these online guides:

• How to Win an R&D 100 Award
• 10 Most Common R&D 100 Questions
• Download the 2012 R&D 100 AWARDS ENTRY FORM from the R&D 100 Awards section of our Website.

Technical experts enlisted from industry, academy, and publicly funded laboratories—as well as the editors of R&D Magazine—judge the entries. Winners will be notified on or about June 13, 2012.

Reminder: The deadline for entries is April 30, 2012 at 11:59 pm, eastern U.S. time. All entries must be submitted electronically using the 2012 R&D 100 Awards Entry Formfrom the R&D 100 Awards section of our Web site.

If you have any questions, please contact us at RDeditors@advantagemedia.com or call Senior Editor Paul Livingstone at 973-920-7032.

It’s hard to believe it’s that time of year again! The R&D 100 Awards has increasingly become a year-round event for R&D Magazine’s editors. In the fall, even as we present the year’s winners with their awards at a black-tie event in Florida, we have already opened the doors online for the next year’s entries.

As the awards grow in size, and our coverage online grows more extensive, we find ourselves reaching out more frequently for the expertise of professionals working in high-technology fields. This isn’t surprising. We’ve been collecting more entries over the past few years, and, increasingly, the products we evaluate are highly innovative, complex, and require the knowledgeable of someone who has experience in a given field, whether it’s live cell imaging, metals, spectrometers, or solar cells. In fact, the number of technology categories we do evaluate has grown from 17 or 18 in 2007 to a full 20 in 2012. We fully expect that, as we mark off a full half-century of the leading awards program for industry-wide innovation, we will require more help than ever.

At the same time, judges have less time then ever before as the demands of life leave little time for reading a lot of entry material. Over the past few years, the R&D’s editors have worked hard to streamline the judging process so that, aside from reading the entry, it only requires a quick download of the entry form and the completion of simple, secure online survey. This leaves judges to spend the majority of their time absorbing the entry material, whether this encompasses videos, patent information, or simply the entry form itself. The survey method is a great help to editors as well, as it allows them to quickly hone in on stand-out technologies and truly begin the evaluation process.

Even if you have just an hour or two on the weekend, consider spending some time helping us find the top 100. We expect to receive plenty of entries for each of the 20 technology fields we review for these awards. With your commitment to judge new products in your field of expertise, we can quickly reach 100 winners.

2012 R&D 100 Awards Judge Application Form

As we sent the August issue to press, the editors of R&D Magazine are busy preparing for the September issue, which will profile the top innovations selected for the 2011 R&D 100 Awards. At the same time, we have opened nominations for the 2012 competition, which will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the awards. If your company introduced a product this year, you can enter your product now. Here are typical questions we receive about the process:

What products or processes are eligible? Any new technical product or process that was first available for purchase or licensing between Jan. 1, 2011, and Dec. 31, 2011, is eligible for the 2012 R&D 100 Awards. The product must be a working, marketable product: proof-of-concept prototypes do not qualify. Products requiring regulatory approval must have received approval for marketing by a governing regulatory authority.

How do I enter? Companies must complete and submit an entry form, pay the entry fee, and submit all documentation electronically by the deadline of April 13, 2012.

The entry is a written document, (typically 10 to 20 pages in length) that details development history, primary functions, methods of operation, scientific theories behind the technology, the materials, composition, construction, or mechanism of action, and product price. Supporting information—scientific papers, images, videos, testimonials—is encouraged.

Editors' Advice: Answer all of the questions in a clear, concise, and objective manner. Do not write this as an advertisement or marketing brochure. Write the document as an informative, scientific report that will be read by very busy judges.

How do the judges evaluate entries? The most important section of the entry is the product comparison. Entrants are asked to list their product's competitors and supply a matrix showing how the key features of the product—including price and operating costs—compare to existing products or technologies. The judges also want to know a product's limitations. If you say the product has no shortcomings, expect the judges to be skeptical about your entry.

It is in the competitive matrix where many entries fail to explain their technology and its contribution to the market in clear, objective terms. The statement "We have no competition" sends up a red flag. Every product and process has competition of some form. For example, the first telephone competed with the telegraph and in-person conversation. The first motor vehicle competed with the horse and buggy.

How do I improve my entry? To provide additional assistance to companies submitting entries, particularly first-time entrants, the editors are offering an Early Bird review for entries submitted before Nov. 15, 2011. Upon request, the editors will provide recommendations to help you improve the entry by Dec. 15, 2011. While we can’t guarantee that the recommendations will translate into a win, the suggestions will guide you to provide the information that the judges seek.

Can you tell me more? You can find detailed instructions, read "How to Win An R&D 100 Award" and "10 Most Common R&D 100 Questions", sign up for the mailing list, and download the entry form on our website: http://www.rdmag.com/Awards/RD-100-Awards/R-D-100-Awards/

If you are an R&D Daily subscriber you are probably used to seeing us appear in your mailbox between lunch and quitting time. Now you can have a little R&D Daily with your morning coffee—as well as your afternoon break. Starting May 2, you will receive--two R&D Daily newsletters: the a.m. Edition and the p.m. Edition. Each newsletter will feature the science and technology news that R&D Daily readers seek every day. There’s no need for existing subscribers to sign up again; and if you haven’t subscribed yet, give it a try here.

If you are like me, you may groan at the prospect of yet more email. But I like to think the Daily is a far more welcome arrival to the inbox than, say, yet another important message about great deals on inkjet cartridges or another bogus offer to enter into a money laundering arrangement with the wealthy relatives of Hosni Mubarak. We think you might rather read about the ability for Earth recover from global warming events in our past or development of the world's deepest-diving submersible.

And the new format will help keep us editors on our toes. Yes, we are well-practiced at chasing down the some of the best and most pertinent R&D news out there, and we enjoy the chase. But sometimes we wish we could jump on a breaking story more quickly, or share more content that normally wouldn’t fit into our newsletter.

So, basically, the new Daily format will be leaner, faster, and offer more insight than before. Not too shabby. And if you have any ideas or suggestions for stories, feel free to send it our way.

Enjoy the fresh supply of R&D news.

Netflix is wonderful for the mailbox. Alongside bills, credit card offers and a never-ending stream of fat magazines, that familiar red-and-white envelope holds the promise of an hour or two of mindless entertainment. Inevitably, though, for every dumb movie or stand-up comedy, I feel obligated to add a documentary, exposé, or heart-wrenching Oscar-winner. The latest was Gasland, which sat on the shelf unwatched for some weeks until I heard it mentioned on the radio during my morning commute. I got what I expected; a Michael Moore-esque “j’accuse” laced with free-form cinematography and folk music.

The filmmaker, Josh Fox, was offered $100,000 to allow natural gas wildcatting on his land. Instead of just accepting the money, he investigated the history of the Marcellus Shale drilling projects. Curious about rumors that one type of extraction method, fracking, was responsible for destroying drinking water wells, he began filming his visits to unfortunate landowners.

Fox isn’t really as interesting, shocking, or clownish as Moore, so the style didn’t quite work. His home visits did, however. He spoke to enough real people, like ranchers, with real problems, like flaming faucets, bubbling creeks, dead fish, to make a convincing case about the dangers of allowing fracking companies to tap wells. It didn’t to show a little clownish behavior on the part of the gas industry and state DEP officials.

But is a single documentary enough to encourage the entire natural gas industry to abandon fracking? Not really. None of Moore’s documentaries were enough to change the car industry, the oil industry, the health industry, or even GM. And America is still a fast food nation. The fact is, a documentary about environmental hazards could be made about nearly any energy-related industry. Living creates waste.

But his project helped open the floodgates on some reality checks for the natural gas industry and the wildcat-like atmosphere surrounding the Marcellus Shale, the repository of enough gas energy to keep the U.S. running for decades. The ability to harvest this resource through fracking--pumping water and chemicals deep underground to crack open gas deposits--has been celebrated as the short-term answer to foreign oil.

But nobody in the natural gas industry has had to answer for what is becoming a major issue: what should we do with the waste?

Waste is the head scratcher for many industries. Take solar energy. Silicon manufacturing creates toxic byproducts, like silicon tetrachloride. In 2008, a Chinese company caught dumping this material, which can break down to hydrochloric acid, gave the “green” solar industry a black eye. This is the ugly part of process development. Perhaps R&D will close the loop and find a good use for that byproduct. The Dai-ichi reactors would not have cause such an awful mess had they not been holding so many spent fuel rods. The reason they were is because the nuclear industry as a whole still doesn’t have a good solution for its waste.

And this is what’s biting the natural gas industry. The fracking itself occurs deep underground, where most of the fracturing and propping open of cracks is accomplished with treated water and sand. This water also returns to the surface, laden with chemicals. Early this week, staffers working for the House Energy and Commerce Committee found that 14 hydraulic fracturing companies used 866 million gallons of products, hundreds of which contained chemicals that are or might be carcinogenic or are listed as hazardous air pollutants. Laced with a variety of common (benzene, toluene) and custom (proprietary) chemicals, this water is a liability and a cost as soon as it comes out of the ground. Drillers have been increasingly finding way to recycle this water, which is typically held in above-ground ponds. It’s used to melt ice, or tamp down dusty roads. With a little research, perhaps the chemicals can be separated before it's dumped or evaporated.

But other byproducts are also causing headaches. Methane, a gas well-known for greenhouse properties, is dissipated from drilling wells and equipment at a far higher rate than initially thought. In addition, as we’ve seen with oil drilling, accidents happen. Many of the complaints about contaminated water so far have probably resulted from blowouts and casing failures, both of which will spread contaminants through groundwater. T. Boone Pickens, who is backing legislation that would transition the 18 million diesel trucks in the U.S. to natural gas power, has defended the fracking practice, saying that he wasn’t aware of a single lawsuit or complaint that arose from its use. With legislation in play, it certainly doesn’t help his case any to claim that natural gas drilling can be bad.

But while Pickens is right that it would be a great idea to stop burning diesel and to start burning domestic fuel, it’s also true that public is now more educated about fracking. Even beyond the media reports, experts are now gauging the impacts of natural gas, and gas doesn't always win. And there are legal conundrums that plague the mature industry, too. Proprietary chemicals, for example, are undisclosed to environmental agencies. Without independent oversight we simply can't know for sure the long-term impacts of their use.

In Pennsylvania, where Fox filmed some of his documentary, coal mining was the first energy rush. Some coal mines caught fire, and at least one there has never stopped burning. The town above it remains abandoned. The gas industry fortunately doesn’t face runaway fires and ghost towns, so we can call it progress. And I certainly love the benefits of a gas stove and gas heat, and would probably buy a natural gas-powered car if one was offered. But the industry can do a better job of explaining what these chemicals will do to water in the long-term, how we can dispose of the wastewater responsibly, and how the benefits of natural gas outweigh the inevitable environmental impacts.

In the late 1950s and early 1960s, some of the last hurdles in human exploration of the globe were overthrown, notably the scaling of Mt. Everest and the plumbing of the depths of the Marianas Trench. They paved the way for planting a flag on the Moon. But one notable project went underfunded and eventually forgotten.

Project Mohole was the first effort to dig down to the Mohorovičić Discontinuity, where exists an unsolved mystery. Named after a Croatian seismologist, the Discontinuity is where seismic waves abruptly change in frequency. The change can be attributed to a difference in material as the basalt of Earth’s crust gives way to perioditic materials of the more plastic mantle. The switchover is so sudden, however, that this theory clashed with the expectation that the interface between the mantle and the crust is not well defined. As a result, other explanations have been offered, such as the idea that the waves undergo a phase switch as the result of passing through temperature gradients in mantle.

After digging about 600 feet into the crust (in nearly 12,000 feet of water), Project Mohole’s original support mechanism, the American Miscellaneous Society, dissipated and funding from Congress dissipated after control was passed to the National Science Foundation. However, the project was considered successful, and the techniques developed proved that deep holes could be dug in deep water.

Digging through the ocean floor, of course, is easier in that the crust is just 3 miles thick in many places, letting researchers avoid many miles of extra drilling. That didn’t stop the Soviet Union, of course, from drilling their monstrous 40,000-foot Kola Superdeep Borehole.

In a commentary in the March 24 issue of Nature, Damon Teagle of the National Oceanography Centre at the University of Southampton, UK, and Benoît Ildefonse of the University of Montpellier in France say we can now drill into the Earth’s mantle. I cannot vouchsafe their argument as I do not have an online access to Nature’s articles, but perhaps it’s best to say that we can finally do so without having to spend quite so much time and money. Nature, in fact, has published several articles about mantle-deep boreholes, dating back to a 1958 piece by T.F. Gaskell, a physicist at British Petroleum.

The technology to reach the mantle has probably been available since Project Mohole, but whether anyone is willing to commit to the effort is another question. We have some precedent for what to expect at these depths. Temperatures in the Russian borehole achieved 360 degrees C, hot enough to spur a hoax about the discovery of Hell. In addition to the Kola Superdeep, another 34,000 foot hole was drilled in the U.S. in search of oil. Crushing pressures of 25,000 psi were encountered before molten sulfur melted the drill bit.

Undoubtedly drilling will be very expensive and fraught with setback. The drill team will probably need to design an entirely new drill setup that can do without the traditional riser that vents explosive gases. And some method of forcing drilled material to the surface will need to be invented. Insights derived from the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program will probably be crucial to the effort.

But is it worth it? Absolutely. In the 1950s, the excitement of Project Mohole was enough to prompt a gushing article from Popular Science. I think we can consider it unfinished business.