OH WHAT THE EVER LIVING FUCK
I AM SO DONE.
WHO IS THIS MAN??? THE MOST INTERESTING MAN IN THE WRLD???
Window Socket - Kyuho Song & Boa Oh
So this is an absolutley brilliant idea! Just attach the plug on to a window and it will harness solar energy. A small converter will convert it into electricity which can be freely used as a plug when you are in the car, on a plane or outside.
Love this design and I really think it has a great potential.Holy shit!!!!!!
shit yeah
First Algae-Powered Building Goes Up in Hamburg
A 15-unit apartment building has been constructed in the German city of Hamburg that has 129 algae filled louvered tanks hanging over the exterior of the south-east and south-west sides of the building—making it the first in the world to be powered exclusively by algae. Designed by Arup, SSC Strategic Science Consultants and Splitterwerk Architects, and named the Bio Intelligent Quotient (BIQ) House, the building demonstrates the ability to use algae as a way to heat and cool large buildings. (x)
You guys this is so cool: this building has the potential to be completely energy-independent, with the algae growing during the day and serving as power source, shade & cooling, UV protection, and a sound buffer. The outside of the building will also look really cool as the algae grow, and the panels change color and shift toward sunlight throughout the day.
The algae will essentially serve as a bioreactor, generating biomass which is processed into ‘biofuel’ which will then power the building’s activities (heating, electricity, etc.) throughout the day:
The building is set to open later this month, and many researchers and engineers are eager to see if this idea can be practically applied to other buildings around the world.The algae flourish and multiply in a regular cycle until they can be harvested. They are then separated from the rest of the algae and transferred as a thick pulp to the technical room of the BIQ. The little plants are then fermented in an external biogas plant, so that they can be used again to generate biogas. Algae are particularly well suited for this, as they produce up to five times as much biomass per hectare as terrestrial plants and contain many oils that can be used for energy. (x)
Potentially, the concept could power whole buildings at very low running-costs and act as a CO2 sink.(photo credit: x)
How Fracking Causes EarthquakesContributing Mother Jones writer Michael Behar “has an intriguing feature today that details the science behind the link between injection wells and earthquakes.”
A Strange Computer Promises Great Speed
From the New York Times:
VANCOUVER, British Columbia — Our digital age is all about bits, those precise ones and zeros that are the stuff of modern computer code.
But a powerful new type of computer that is about to be commercially deployed by a major American military contractor is taking computing into the strange, subatomic realm of quantum mechanics. In that infinitesimal neighborhood, common sense logic no longer seems to apply. A one can be a one, or it can be a one and a zero and everything in between — all at the same time.
It sounds preposterous, particularly to those familiar with the yes/no world of conventional computing. But academic researchers and scientists at companies like Microsoft, I.B.M. and Hewlett-Packard have been working to develop quantum computers.
Now, Lockheed Martin — which bought an early version of such a computer from the Canadian company D-Wave Systems two years ago — is confident enough in the technology to upgrade it to commercial scale, becoming the first company to use quantum computing as part of its business.
This is the type of thing that I’d ideally be designing in the future.
Neurons growing in a cell culture
These time lapse animations use phase contrast microscopy to show neural stem cells in a nutrient medium for 4 hours. They reveal the dynamic growth and recycling of dendrites and synapses as neurons establish relationships with each other. The social behavior of these cells creates the incredible properties of the mind and brain.
Credit: University of Victoria Medical Sciences
Red hot nickel dropped in water…
I just yelled THAT’S SO FASCINATING
As well you should because THAT IS SERIOUSLY SO FASCINATING
You know those little things that keep bread bags closed? Well, the internet would like to tell you about them. If you’re not doing anything too important right now, I think you should visit HORG (that’s the Holotypic Occlupanid Research Group) and explore a beautiful, obsessive, hilarious taxonomy of occlupanids.
(ht Metafilter)
fighting the urge to go check my bread bags to see which ones I have here!
this is so goddamn awesome- I have found two different species in my household right now
fascinating
We can’t cure cancer
But we can classify “those little things that keep bread bags closed”
Not bad
zetx:
Solar power cheaper than coal: One company says it cracked the code
by David Roberts
Over time I’ve grown more and more suspicious of stories about breakthrough technologies. I always think back to those heady days of EEStor, the guys who were going to make a battery that would revolutionize grid storage and electric cars alike. “EEStor CEO says game-changing energy storage device coming by 2010”! As you may have noticed, 2010 came and went and the game remains unchanged.
All of which is to say, regarding the post to follow: caveat lector. Still, this looks very, very cool…
CleanTechnica has an exclusive on a new solar technology that claims to be able to produce power with a levelized cost of energy (LCOE) of8¢/kWh. That is mind-boggling, “two-thirds the price of retail electricity and over 3 times cheaper than current solar technology.” If the claim proves to be true (and a lot can happen between prototype and mass manufacturing), it could revolutionize the solar industry.
The company is called V3Solar (formerly Solarphasec) and its product, the Spin Cell, ingeniously solves two big problems facing solar PV.
First, most solar panels are flat, which means they miss most of the sunlight most of the time. They only briefly face direct sunlight, unless expensive tracking systems are added. The Spin Cell is a cone…
(read more: Grist.org) (images: V3Solar)
I’ll take three.
Can I put a couple outside my window?
