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johannessimon81

Peel-and-Stick: Fabricating Thin Film Solar Cell on Universal Substrates - 3 views

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    any clue how? "With the peel-and-stick process, we integrated hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) TFSCs on paper, plastics, cell phone and building windows while maintaining the original 7.5% efficiency. The new peel-and-stick process enables further reduction of the cost and weight for TFSCs and endows TFSCs with flexibility and attachability for broader application areas. We believe that the peel-and-stick process can be applied to thin film electronics as well"
fichbio

First evidence that sperm epigenetics affect the next generation - 0 views

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    A frog study provides the strongest evidence yet that a father's lifestyle may affect the next generation, via chemical tags that change gene activity SPERM pass on more than just their DNA. Chemical switches attached to the genomes of sperm - known as epigenetic tags - have been shown to alter the next generation for the first time.
Alexander Wittig

Wearable Robot Transforms Musicians into Three-Armed Drummers - 2 views

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    Now this would be really cool if it had a brain computer interface and could be controlled by a trained drummer's mind! Science and Technology Society and Culture Georgia Institute of Technology researchers have built a wearable robotic limb that allows drummers to play with three arms. The two-foot long "smart arm" can be attached to a musician's shoulder. It responds to human gestures and the music it hears.
LeopoldS

Graphite + water = the future of energy storage - Monash University - 6 views

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    any idea how this works - who wants to have a closer look at it?
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    Water is used for keeping the graphene stacks separate. Without water or some other separation method the different graphene stacks would just stick together and graphene would lose its nice properties (like a huge surface). So, water has nothing to do with energy but is just the material which keeps the graphene stacks at distance. The result is a gel. Still, energy needs to be stored in the gel.
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    and the different graphene layers act as anodes and cathodes??
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    Layer orientation in a gel is random. Additionally to that, cathodes and anodes are about charge seperation. Graphene layers are (as far as I understand) supposed to provide huge surfaces to which something, maybe a charge, can be attached. So do we need ions and electrons? Probably not. Probably just electrons which can travel easily through the gel. I guess the whole gel (and all layers inside) would be nagtively charged, making the gel blob a fluid cathode. But again, it's just a guess.
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    Wouldn't it be worth having a closer look?
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    it's still not clear to me how to get electricity in and out of this thing?
Tom Gheysens

Biomimicr-E: Nature-Inspired Energy Systems | AAAS - 4 views

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    some biomimicry used in energy systems... maybe it sparks some ideas
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    not much new that has not been shared here before ... BUT: we have done relativley little on any of them. for good reasons?? don't know - maybe time to look into some of these again more closely Energy Efficiency( Termite mounds inspired regulated airflow for temperature control of large structures, preventing wasteful air conditioning and saving 10% energy.[1] Whale fins shapes informed the design of new-age wind turbine blades, with bumps/tubercles reducing drag by 30% and boosting power by 20%.[2][3][4] Stingray motion has motivated studies on this type of low-effort flapping glide, which takes advantage of the leading edge vortex, for new-age underwater robots and submarines.[5][6] Studies of microstructures found on shark skin that decrease drag and prevent accumulation of algae, barnacles, and mussels attached to their body have led to "anti-biofouling" technologies meant to address the 15% of marine vessel fuel use due to drag.[7][8][9][10] Energy Generation( Passive heliotropism exhibited by sunflowers has inspired research on a liquid crystalline elastomer and carbon nanotube system that improves the efficiency of solar panels by 10%, without using GPS and active repositioning panels to track the sun.[11][12][13] Mimicking the fluid dynamics principles utilized by schools of fish could help to optimize the arrangement of individual wind turbines in wind farms.[14] The nanoscale anti-reflection structures found on certain butterfly wings has led to a model to effectively harness solar energy.[15][16][17] Energy Storage( Inspired by the sunlight-to-energy conversion in plants, researchers are utilizing a protein in spinach to create a sort of photovoltaic cell that generates hydrogen from water (i.e. hydrogen fuel cell).[18][19] Utilizing a property of genetically-engineered viruses, specifically their ability to recognize and bind to certain materials (carbon nanotubes in this case), researchers have developed virus-based "scaffolds" that
Thijs Versloot

New polymers could provide breakthrough in li-ion batteries - 0 views

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    DeSimone and his team have been working with PFPE for years, and during their research, the crew found that another polymer electrolyte, polyethylen glycol or PEG, and PFPE could combine to dissolve salt, and potentially function as an electrolyte. When his team attached the PFPE to dimethyl carbonate, an electrolyte traditionally used in batteries, the resulting PFPE-DMC was a polymer that could move a battery's ions with insane levels of efficiency while remaining stable.
Tom Gheysens

Did dark matter kill the dinosaurs? : Nature News & Comment - 1 views

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    theoretical physicists... :) Read the last sentence of the paper...in this way anyone can publish in nature...just make a good story with little evidence Did dark matter kill the dinosaurs? The Solar System's periodic passage through a 'dark disk' on the galactic plane could trigger comet bombardments that would cause mass extinctions.
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    Hmm.. right.. then again, this is not an actual journal publication but a news broadcast. But you are right that the name Nature is attached to it so the journal is definitely banking on their acquired status.
Thijs Versloot

Graphene coated silicon super-capacitors for energy storage - 1 views

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    Recharge in seconds and efficiently store power for weeks between charges. Added bonus is the cheap and abundant components needed. One of the applications they foresee is to attach such a super-capacitor to the back of solar panels to store the power and discharge this during the night
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    very nice indeed - is this already at a stage where we should have a closer look at it? what you think? With experience in growing carbon nanostructures, Pint's group decided to try to coat the porous silicon surface with carbon. "We had no idea what would happen," said Pint. "Typically, researchers grow graphene from silicon-carbide materials at temperatures in excess of 1400 degrees Celsius. But at lower temperatures - 600 to 700 degrees Celsius - we certainly didn't expect graphene-like material growth." When the researchers pulled the porous silicon out of the furnace, they found that it had turned from orange to purple or black. When they inspected it under a powerful scanning electron microscope they found that it looked nearly identical to the original material but it was coated by a layer of graphene a few nanometers thick. When the researchers tested the coated material they found that it had chemically stabilized the silicon surface. When they used it to make supercapacitors, they found that the graphene coating improved energy densities by over two orders of magnitude compared to those made from uncoated porous silicon and significantly better than commercial supercapacitors. Transmission electron microscope image of the surface of porous silicon coated with graphene. The coating consists of a thin layer of 5-10 layers of graphene which filled pores with diameters less than 2-3 nanometers and so did not alter the nanoscale architecture of the underlying silicon. (Cary Pint / Vanderbilt) The graphene layer acts as an atomically thin protective coating. Pint and his group argue that this approach isn't limited to graphene. "The ability to engineer surfaces with atomically thin layers of materials combined with the control achieved in designing porous materials opens opportunities for a number of different applications beyond energy storage," he said.
Joris _

The Associated Press: Daunting space task _ send astronauts to asteroid - 1 views

  • NASA leaders say civilization may depend on it
  • NASA is thinking about jetpacks, tethers, bungees, nets and spiderwebs to allow explorers to float just above the surface of it while attached to a smaller mini-spaceship.
  • At the moment, there are only a handful of asteroid options and they all have names like 1999AO10 or 2009OS5.
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  • NASA is pursuing its concept for a mini-spaceship exploration vehicle, about the size of a minivan. And it's planning an underwater lab for training, an effort to mimic an asteroid mission's challenges
  • "There's a lot of things we need to invent and build between now and then."
Tobias Seidl

TU Müenchen develops steel 'Velcro' - News - The Engineer - 1 views

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    Velcro made of steel, capable of sustaining 800Celsius.
LeopoldS

Greg's Cable Map - 1 views

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    this is the infrastructure that satellites have to compete with ....
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    the largest cable into the Netherlands comes in apparently at Katwijk - we should have super fast internet!!! :-)
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    You mean: "then why don't we have super fast internet?" :-) If you zoom the map in, it's actually way past Noordwijk. My quess is this could be attached somewhere near the naval radio station area? This remembered me the good old times of bike trips in the dunes, eh...
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    well, the description says clearly Katwijk; am quite sure that the maps are less accurate than the description ...
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    I guess you are right... Is ACT already planning a find-and-cut expedition?
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    now that we have the boat and thanks to Camilla it is still floating after the deluge ....
Dario Izzo

Study maps extroversion types in the brain's anatomy - 7 views

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    Anna will rule the world!!!!
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    So... start preparing to be required to attach your brain scan along with your job application...
Thijs Versloot

The Worlds Smallest Thermometer - 0 views

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    By attaching a diamond crystal to an AFM tip, researcher at New York City University managed to measure the heat flows at atomic levels in resistors. The method works due to a vacancy in the carbon lattice, two spots are empty of which one is filled with a nitrogen atom. The energy state of the vacancy is temperature dependent and can actually be read out spectroscopically.
Dario Izzo

Helmfon - Wearing a helmet for isolation in the open space? | Ufunk.net - 2 views

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    Definite solution for our work space!!!!!
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    Absolutely :-) according to picture http://www.ufunk.net/gadgets/helmfon-casque-open-space/attachment/helmfon-casque-open-space-5/ we could squeeze three times as many researchers then :-)
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