Lifeboat Foundation

Contrary to what we all learned in elementary school science class, it turns out that heat may not be necessary to make water evaporate. Scientists at MIT have made the surprising discovery that light alone can evaporate water, and is even more efficient at it than heat. The finding could improve our understanding of natural phenomena or boost desalination systems.

Evaporation occurs when water molecules near the surface of the liquid absorb enough energy to escape into the air above as a gas – water vapor. Generally, heat is the energy source, and in the case of Earth’s water cycle, that heat comes primarily from sunlight.

But in the last few years, different teams of scientists have noticed discrepancies in their experiments concerning water held in hydrogels. Water appeared to be evaporating at much higher rates than should be possible based on the amount of heat it was exposed to, sometimes tripling the theoretical maximum rate.

They can produce twice as much solar fuel with the same input of concentrated solar radiation.

The engine combines the right blend of power, performance, technology and efficiency.

A renowned automaker, typically known to introduce high-revving models that often found its competition in offerings from rival brands with double the cylinders, has now taken a bold step by unveiling a single-cylinder engine.

With a rich heritage dating back to 1926 when the company was founded in Bologna, Italy, Ducati has consistently… More.

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Link :- https://eng.unimelb.edu.au/ingenium/wearable-device-makes-me…f-a-finger

Researchers from the University of Melbourne and RMIT University have invented an experimental wearable device that generates power from a user’s bending finger and can create and store memories, in a promising step towards health monitoring and other technologies.

Multifunctional devices normally require several materials in layers, which involves the time-consuming challenge of stacking nanomaterials with high precision. This innovation features a single nanomaterial incorporated into a stretchable casing fitted to a person’s finger. The nanomaterial enables the device to produce power simply through the user bending their finger. The super-thin material also allows the device to perform memory tasks.

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“There is this kind of power the images have. It really isn’t from us. We’re creating the context in which you can appreciate them, but we’re not forcing it,” Kahn said.

In the background, award-winning actress Michelle Williams narrates what we see, which, Kahn admits, was a bit of a deviation from his usual filmmaking blueprint.

“Many of my films are done just through putting together interviews with people or encounters with people,” he said. Or in other words, there is no doctored narrative.

A new “structure reduces the amount of materials necessary – bringing down the weight, volume, and, crucially, the cost of manufacturing.”

In what can provide a major boost to renewable energy generation initiatives, a cutting-edge tidal turbine blade has been indigenously developed in Scotland at a more affordable price.

The turbine was manufactured by a team of design engineers from the University of Edinburgh and is slated to help reduce the levelized cost of tidal energy. The new “structure reduces the amount of materials necessary – bringing down the weight, volume and, crucially, the cost of manufacturing the blade,” said the team in a statement.

Congress is currently debating the FAA’s long-term reauthorization, which might have an impact on the ongoing use of leaded aviation fuel at smaller airports.

Serjio74/iStock.

Since 1980, the US has had a stunning 99 percent reduction in airborne lead levels as a result of EPA regulations. However, Leaded gas is still used in the aviation industry, according to a report published by EPA on Wednesday.

Continue reading “Health crisis: 220,000 planes still use lead fuel, warns US agency” »

One problem with a return mission to Neptune is that a flyby focused solely on that world does not provide significant bang for the buck. Without the lucky alignment available to missions in the 1970s and ’80s, we’d have to spend even more fuel to send a probe in that direction, and we wouldn’t get that much more science than we did decades ago.

The next logical step after a successful flyby mission is an orbiter, but the extreme distance to Neptune poses significant challenges. We have no clear way to haul a large enough orbiter to the Neptune system, pack enough fuel to allow it to slow down and do it all in a reasonably short amount of time.

However, researchers have shared a radical new idea for how to overcome these challenges: Use the thin atmosphere of Triton, Neptune’s largest moon, to capture a spacecraft.

Microsoft Research, the R&D arm of the Redmond software giant, is testing the storage of huge amounts of data on glass plates in a futuristic initiative dubbed “Project Silica.” If successful, it could be used to store information for thousands of years without degradation.

The Microsoft researchers store the data in the glass using three-dimensional pixels called voxels. In contrast to classical storage methods such as magnetic spinning disks, the “saucer-sized glass plates of Project Silica will store data for thousands of years and create sustainable storage for the world,” as Microsoft describes it.

Magnetic storage, while widely used, is problematic, according to Microsoft. Because of their limited lifespan, they need to be recopied frequently, which increases energy consumption and operating costs over time: “A hard disk drive might last five years. A tape, well, if you’re brave, it might last ten years”, explains Ant Rowstron, Distinguished Engineer, Project Silica.