he efficiency of conventional solar cells could be significantly increased, according to new research on the mechanisms of solar energy conversion led by chemist Xiaoyang Zhu at The University of Texas at Austin. The maximum theoretical efficiency of the silicon solar cell in use today is approximately 31 percent, because much of the sun’s energy …
1. Asia Times online has a lengthy feature on Rosatom’s (AtomRedMetZoloto) Uranium Holding Co, or ARMZ, plans to dominate worldwide uranium production. Rosatom is the Russian uranium company. Russia treats its nuclear industry as a national resource, and it is aware that the uranium cupboard – at least as it pertains to HEU (highly enriched …
Automobile air emissions are a well-recognized problem and have been subject to considerable regulation. An increasing concern for greenhouse gas emissions draws additional considerations to the externalities of personal vehicle travel. This paper provides estimates of the costs for automobile air emissions for 86 U.S. metropolitan areas based on county-specific external air emission morbidity, mortality, …
By using optical equipment in a totally unexpected way, MIT researchers have created an imaging system that makes light look slow. MIT researchers have created a new imaging system that can acquire visual data at a rate of one trillion exposures per second. That’s fast enough to produce a slow-motion video of a burst of …
1. Discovery Space News – Forget the much-hyped doomsday in 2012, we were inundated with doomsday events THIS year… in other star systems. — Ian O’Neill 2. TheSpacewriter takes on the evolution of the cosmos and of human consciousness by way of reviewing a video called The Journey of the Universe. 3. Armagh Planet – …
Russia and China have held their first meeting for cooperation in the development of marine nuclear energy for floating power plants and potentially for propulsion of large ships. While hundreds of nuclear reactors have been employed in the military navies of China, France, Russia, the UK and USA for decades, only Russia has maintained a …
Nature- Nano-sized flakes of graphene oxide can be spun into graphene fibres several metres long, researchers in China have shown. The strong, flexible fibres, which can be tied in knots or woven into conductive mats, could be the key to deploying graphene in real-world devices such as flexible batteries and solar cells. Improving the graphene …
ACS Nano – Nano imprinting with self assembled block copolymers can enable low cost sub-10 nanometer resolution nanopatterning. Directed self-assembly (DSA) of block copolymers (BCPs), either by selective wetting of surface chemical prepatterns or by graphoepitaxial alignment with surface topography, has ushered in a new era for high-resolution nanopatterning. These pioneering approaches, while effective, require …
A team of scientists from Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) and CellThera, a private company located in WPI’s Life Sciences and Bioengineering Center, have regenerated functional muscle tissue in mice, opening the door for a new clinical therapy to treat people who suffer major muscle trauma. They reprogrammed human cells and bioengineered microthreads. The team used …
Nyteknik – Tomorrow on Wednesday the Greek company Defkalion will present products similar to Andrea Rossi’s ‘E-cat’, claiming that the technology is developed in-house. But Defkalion earlier told Ny Teknik that it has ‘the formula of Rossi’. “Let’s say I have the formula of Rossi, but I’m not saying it officially. My scientists found a …
North Dakota Department of Mineral Resources presentation on the Bakken, Natural gas flaring and other topics (70 pages) The 90 percentile upper range has increased by 100,000 barrels per day and the proven lower range has increased by 50,000 barrels per day and the probable is also up about 40,000 barrels per day. This new …