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Researchers have found a way to make flexible silicon solar cells using only 1 percent of the material used in conventional solar cells. The cells are made of micron-sized silicon wires that are encased in a flexible polymer that can be rolled or bent.  The researchers at Cal Tech who developed the cells eventually see them being used in clothing, but, for now, the cells could create cheaper and easier-to-install solar panels. Large consumer electronic companies like Sharp have experimented with organic thin-film solar cells, which are flexible, but they're less efficient than those made with silicon.  This breakthrough is the latest in a recent crop of studies combining the efficiency of silicon (about 15 to 20 percent efficiency) with the flexibility of the organic thin-film cells, but this one has the distinction of using only 1/100th of the amount of silicon per cell as a traditional silicon wafer. An added bonus to this type of solar cell is that existing manufacturing technology could be used to make them, further helping to keep cost down.

This is the discovery that could put the College of Wooster on the map: glass that swells like a sponge.  Put together like a nano-matrix, the new glass can unfold to hold up to eight times its weight.  The glass binds with gasoline and other pollutants containing volatile organic compounds but it does not bind with water, so it acts like a “smart” sponge, capable of picking and choosing from contaminated groundwater.

Studying Sea Life for a Glue That Mends People Top and bottom left: Fred Hayes/University of Utah; top and bottom right: Russell Stewart STICK-TO-IT-IVENESS Clockwise from top left, the sandcastle worm builds its home by using tentacles to grab sand and shell bits and glues them with adhesive from an organ on its head; its tube-shaped dwelling; two beads of a worm’s home, microscopically enlarged; a section of a sandcastle worm colony.