New quantum dot solar cells could increase the maximum efficiency of solar panels by over 25%, according to scientists from the University of Cambridge. The Cambridge team, led by Professor Neil Greenham and Professor Sir Richard Friend, has developed a hybrid cell which absorbs red light and harnesses the extra energy of blue light to …
A University of Manchester team lead by Nobel laureates Professor Andre Geim and Professor Konstantin Novoselov has literally opened a third dimension in graphene research. Their research shows a transistor that may prove the missing link for graphene to become the next silicon. Graphene – one atomic plane of carbon – is a remarkable material …
Innovega iOptiks are contact lenses that enhance normal vision by allowing a wearer to view virtual and augmented reality images without the need for bulky apparatus. Instead of oversized virtual reality helmets, digital images are projected onto tiny full-color displays that are very near the eye. Innovega Demonstrates Megapixel Contact Lens Eyewear Over the past …
Lawrence Krauss (physicist and author of the Physics of Star Trek) wrote in New Scientist that Newt Gingrich’s proposal to put a permanent base on the moon will have to cost about $1 trillion because the International Space station cost $150 billion and the Space Shuttle program cost over $200 billion. Apparently once the government …
Reason – Based on data from hundreds of programs, policy analyst John D. Graham and his colleagues at the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis found in 1997 that the median cost for lifesaving expenditures and regulations by the U.S. government in the health care, residential, transportation, and occupational areas ranges from about $1 million to …
The computer industry has become almost fixated on power issues. Power-per-watt is the new metric for CPUs and GPUs, and everything from chips to data centers are now power-limited. The Tilera corp. has developed a series of multicore processors which could dramatically reduce power consumption for certain computing tasks. For tasks not requiring floating-point performance, …
The Nextbigfuture nuclear launch gun has been described several times. It is a one pulse variant of a project orion external pulse propulsion system. It is simple though dramatic: Dig a kilometers deep shaft—a salt layer would be easiest to penetrate (some exist 3.5 kilometers thick) —build at the bottom a giant shell, from components …
NY Times – Almost all of the 70 million iPhones, 30 million iPads and 59 million other products Apple sold last year were manufactured overseas. Why can’t that work come home? Mr. Obama asked in February. Mr. Jobs’s reply was unambiguous. “Those jobs aren’t coming back,” he said, according to another dinner guest. It isn’t …
BBC News – Last week BBC News asked readers for their predictions of life in 100 years time. Inspired by ten 100-year predictions made by American civil engineer John Elfreth Watkins in 1900, many readers wrote in with their vision of the world in 2112. I will review those predictions. A common problem to many …
John Elfreth Watkins, Jr. made 29 predictions in 1900 of what may happen in the next 100 years. Here we will review what was right, what was too optimistic and what was too pessimistic. Prediction #20: Coal will not be used for heating or cooking. It will be scarce, but not entirely exhausted. The earth’s …
THE ECONOMIST’s Big Mac index is based on the theory of purchasing-power parity: in the long run, exchange rates should adjust to equal the price of a basket of goods and services in different countries. This particular basket holds a McDonald’s Big Mac, whose price around the world we compared with its American average of …