Feb 2009 status of China’s High Temperature modular pebble bed reactor project ( 8 page pdf) by Zhang The expected project construction period from pouring the first tank of concrete to generating electricity for the grid is scheduled to be 50 months. Although the workload of building, construction and installation is relatively clear and straight …
1. Researchers at IBM have increased the efficiency of a novel type of solar cell made largely from cheap and abundant materials by over 40 percent. According to an article published this week in the journal Advanced Materials, the new efficiency is 9.6 percent, up from the previous record of 6.7 percent for this type …
University of Florida scientists have developed a new nanoparticle that could improve cancer detection and drug delivery. The particle, called a “micelle” and made up of a cluster of molecules called aptamers, easily recognizes tumors and binds strongly to them. It also has properties that allow it to easily get inside cells for intracellular studies …
Few people know what is going on at Heartland Robotics and Mr. Brooks was careful to avoid specifics, but he showed video of robots that faintly resemble Star Wars’ C-3PO. Rodney was speaking at the Robotics Industry Forum. He spoke of how a world dominated by the Wal-Mart style of business (which he says relies …
Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers have an updated forecast for canadian oil production and in particular the oilsands Wall Street Journal – Lower labour and material costs are enabling more oil sand projects to get restarted Adding Significant Oil in Iraq, Brazil, Canada and the United States Canada will be adding a little of 1 …
The Air Force is trying to find just those massively disproportionately valuable technologies that could really have game-changing capabilities. Rather than focus on specific systems, Dahm and his staff members have looked for themes that they expect technology to follow. For example, Dahm expects to see a gradual shift from “manned to unmanned, larger systems …
1. Consuming two or more soft drinks per week increased the risk of developing pancreatic cancer by nearly twofold compared to individuals who did not consume soft drinks, according to a report in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research. Although relatively rare, pancreatic cancer remains one of …
Avatar has a domestic box office of $630 million and will have a final domestic box office of $730-760 million Box Office Mojo Inflation Adjusted totals This will place Avatar 11th-14th on the inflation adjusted all time domestic list. There is talk about re-releasing Titanic in 3D in late 2010 There is no uncertainty that …
1. Advanced Functional Materials – Poly(3-hexylthiophene) Nanorods with Aligned Chain Orientation for Organic Photovoltaics A structured polymer solar cell architecture featuring a large interface between donor and acceptor with connecting paths to the respective electrodes is explored. To this end, poly-(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) nanorods oriented perpendicularly to indium tin oxide (ITO) glass are fabricated using an …
MIT researchers have demonstrated the first room temperatur laser built from germanium that can produce wavelengths of light useful for optical communication. Germanium is easy to incorporate into existing processes for manufacturing silicon chips. So the result could prove an important step toward computers that move data — and maybe even perform calculations — using …
Eric Drexler talks about the current state of self assembly and future possibilities in three recent articles. 1. Eric has been exploring some recent developments in chemical synthesis and self-assembly that suggest attractive possibilities for engineering robust self-assembling molecular systems. Boronate esters are involved in two ways. 2. Self-assembling nanostructures: Building the building blocks Eric …