General science advances thread

[ScienceRocks]

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5evOIe4IvP8&feature=player_embedded]Printing Australia's largest solar cells - YouTube[/ame]




Largest solar cell printer can make a new panel every two seconds

Scientists have produced the largest flexible, plastic solar cells in Australia – 10 times the size of what they were previously able to – thanks to a new printer installed at CSIRO, the country's national science agency.


Printing Australia’s Largest Solar Cells


May 19, 2013 Guest Contributor

Scientists have produced the largest flexible, plastic solar cells in Australia – 10 times the size of what they were previously able to – thanks to a new solar cell printer that has been installed at CSIRO.

The printer has allowed researchers from the Victorian Organic Solar Cell Consortium (VICOSC) – a collaboration between CSIRO, The University of Melbourne, Monash University and industry partners – to print organic photovoltaic cells the size of an A3 sheet of paper.

According to CSIRO materials scientist Dr Scott Watkins, printing cells on such a large scale opens up a huge range of possibilities for pilot applications.

“There are so many things we can do with cells this size,” he says. “We can set them into advertising signage, powering lights and other interactive elements. We can even embed them into laptop cases to provide backup power for the machine inside.”

Read more at http://cleantechnica.com/2013/05/19/printing-australias-largest-solar-cells/#bhSmUrZzMcvtQ0rp.99

 

[ScienceRocks]

Finally! Independent Testing Of Rossi's E-Cat Cold Fusion Device: Maybe The World Will Change After All
Italiano: Schema della cella di Piantelli-Foca...

Back in October 2011 I first wrote about Italian engineer, Andrea Rossi, and his E-Cat project, a device that produces heat through a process called a Low Energy Nuclear Reaction (LENR).

Very briefly, LENR, otherwise called cold fusion, is a technique that generates energy through low temperature (far lower than hot fusion temperatures which are in the range of tens off thousands of degrees) reactions that are not chemical. Most importantly, LENR is, theoretically, much safer, much simpler, and many orders of magnitude cheaper than hot fusion. Rather than explaining LENR in detail here please see my original posting for a more complete explanation.

My next post on this topic was here on Forbes a few days later and, as the labyrinthine and occasionally ridiculous saga developed, I tried to sort fact from fiction in a series of posts (see the list at the end of this posting) which covered everything from unconvincing demos, through an Australian businessman offering Rossi $1 million to show independently tested proof, to other players in the LENR market showing interesting results.

While a few commentators have raised criticisms concerning how the measurements were made and sources of error others have argued that the energy produced is so significant even knocking off an order of magnitude on either axis still portrays a process with insanely valuable output.

This is not, of course, the last word or even one anywhere near the end of this story but unless this is one of the most elaborate hoaxes in scientific history it looks like the world may well be about to change. How quick will depend solely on Rossi.

Finally! Independent Testing Of Rossi's E-Cat Cold Fusion Device: Maybe The World Will Change After All - Forbes

 

[ScienceRocks]

Ministers approve plans for world's biggest wave farm in Western Isles

Ministers have approved plans for the world's largest commercial wave farm.

Full consent has been given for a 40MW farm off the north-west coast of Lewis - enough to power nearly 30,000 homes.

Wave energy firm Aquamarine Power said it would begin installing its Oyster devices in the next few years, once grid infrastructure is put in place.

Energy giant SSE said last week it would not be able to commission work on a Western Isles subsea electricity cable before 2017.

Aquamarine said it planned "ultimately" to deploy between 40 and 50 devices along the coast at Lag na Greine, near Fivepenny Borve.

BBC News - Ministers approve plans for world's biggest wave farm in Western Isles

 

[ScienceRocks]

Transparent electrode innovation could bring flexible solar cells, transistors, displays

(Phys.org) —Researchers have created a new type of transparent electrode that might find uses in solar cells, flexible displays for computers and consumer electronics and future "optoelectronic" circuits for sensors and information processing.

The electrode is made of silver nanowires covered with a material called graphene, an extremely thin layer of carbon. The hybrid material shows promise as a possible replacement for indium tin oxide, or ITO, used in transparent electrodes for touch-screen monitors, cell-phone displays and flat-screen televisions. Industry is seeking alternatives to ITO because of drawbacks: It is relatively expensive due to limited abundance of indium, and it is inflexible and degrades over time, becoming brittle and hindering performance.

"If you try to bend ITO it cracks and then stops functioning properly," said Purdue University doctoral student Suprem Das.

Read more at: Transparent electrode innovation could bring flexible solar cells, transistors, displays

 

[ScienceRocks]

New technique may open up an era of atomic-scale semiconductor devices

8 hours ago by Matt Shipman

New technique may open up an era of atomic-scale semiconductor devices
The thin films are only one atom thick, but can be made wide enough to coat wafers that are two inches wide or larger. The films are made of molybdenum sulfide, an inexpensive semiconductor material.
(Phys.org) —Researchers at North Carolina State University have developed a new technique for creating high-quality semiconductor thin films at the atomic scale – meaning the films are only one atom thick. The technique can be used to create these thin films on a large scale, sufficient to coat wafers that are two inches wide, or larger.

"This could be used to scale current semiconductor technologies down to the atomic scale – lasers, light-emitting diodes (LEDs), computer chips, anything," says Dr. Linyou Cao, an assistant professor of materials science and engineering at NC State and senior author of a paper on the work. "People have been talking about this concept for a long time, but it wasn't possible. With this discovery, I think it's possible."

The researchers worked with molybdenum sulfide (MoS2), an inexpensive semiconductor material with electronic and optical properties similar to materials already used in the semiconductor industry. However, MoS2 is different from other semiconductor materials because it can be "grown" in layers only one atom thick without compromising its properties.

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2013-05-technique-era-atomic-scale-semiconductor-devices.html#jCp

Read more at: New technique may open up an era of atomic-scale semiconductor devices

 

[Trakar]

COOLTECHGIRLS
New club aims to interest girls in science, math, tech fields | ThisWeek Community News

"New club aims to interest girls in science, math, tech fields"

Girls tend to shy away from science, technology, engineering and math, but a new Dublin club is aiming to change that.
CoolTechGirls, an initiative for girls in grades 6-12 started by Dublin, the Dublin Entrepreneurial Center and Cybervation, will kick off Saturday, May 18...

...CoolTechGirls is a joint initiative between Cybervation, City of Dublin, Dublin Entrepreneurial Center (DEC) and TechDEC. Our vision is to provide a supportive and collaborative environment to school age girls to ignite their passion in science and technology.

Our goal is to distribute valuable career-related information to students and parents through lunch and learns and workshops. We strive to engage girls by introducing them to Role Models in the field of Science and Technology who would motivate and mentor them. The program would also provide girls with possible internships and job shadow opportunities.

Cooltechgirls

 

[ScienceRocks]

I'd like to see such a program in Africa and the middle east. Now that would be good.

 

[ScienceRocks]

The better to see you with: Scientists build record-setting metamaterial flat lens

For the first time, scientists working at the National Institute of Standards and Technology have demonstrated a new type of lens that bends and focuses ultraviolet (UV) light in such an unusual way that it can create ghostly, 3D images of objects that float in free space. The easy-to-build lens could lead to improved photolithography, nanoscale manipulation and manufacturing, and even high-resolution three-dimensional imaging, as well as a number of as-yet-unimagined applications in a diverse range of fields.

Read more at: The better to see you with: Scientists build record-setting metamaterial flat lens

 

[ScienceRocks]

China's Sky City will be world's tallest building by year's end

Colin Druce-McFadden

Tuesday, May 21, 2013 - 4:42pm
China's Sky City will be world's tallest building by year's end | DVICE

Like a massive erector set, China's Sky City is a pre-fab skyscraper, one that is expected to become the world's tallest structure. And will be completed in record time.

The total scheduled build time of Sky City is a meager seven months. That's a rate of 13 feet (more than a single story) per day. Even that incredibly ambitious goal is a step back toward sanity for Sky City's developers. The initial plan was to complete the structure in 90 days, which would have come out to roughly three floors a day.

It's true that pre-fab materials will likely speed the process onward, but that's a speedy clip, no matter what it is you're building. And what with Sky City boasting the ability to resist a 9.0 earthquake, the design isn't exactly something a five-year-old could whip up with some crayons.

That's good because the $628 million cost isn't something anyone would want to invest in a slap-dash effort. Hopes are high and fingers are crossed for next month's ground breaking ceremony and subsequent construction. If all goes well, China could eclipse Dubai as home of the world's tallest man-made structure by the holidays. Catch a glimpse of how the project will come together — and what it will ultimately look like — in the video below.

 

[ScienceRocks]

Researchers capture image of hydrogen atom’s electron orbital for first time
Researchers capture image of hydrogen atom?s electron orbital for first time | Science! | Geek.com

Science! By Ryan Whitwam May. 27, 2013 10:01 am
orbital

An international team of researchers has managed for the first time to visualize the electron orbital of a hydrogen atom. The image was acquired with a revolutionary new instrument called a quantum microscope, which allows scientists to push the limits of quantum states and observe what was once only theory. It almost goes without saying this is a huge deal.

 

[ScienceRocks]

Scientists Thaw and Revive Plants Frozen Since Shakespeare's Time

Tags Plants, Glaciers, canada, Regeneration

Centuries-old plant life has been revived after being frozen and buried under glaciers for 400 years. The mosses were revealed by the melting Canadian glaciers, and the tough little plants were actually regenerated by scientists without using any outlandishly novel techniques.

Dr. Catherine La Farge and her colleagues at the University of Alberta discovered and collected the mosses and liverworts, called "bryophytes," which were uncovered by the swift thawing of the Teardrop Glacier on Ellesmere Island in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, according to Dr. La Farge's study, published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS

Scientists Thaw and Revive Plants Frozen Since Shakespeare's Time : Science : Latinos Post

 

[ScienceRocks]

Mammoth find: Preserved Ice Age giant found with flowing blood in Siberia

Russian scientists discovered a fully-grown female mammoth with blood and well-preserved muscle tissue trapped in ice in Siberia. The findings come amid debates on whether the extinct species should be resurrected using DNA.

Scientists say they have managed to find mammoth blood during the excavation of a grown female animal on the Lyakhovsky Islands, the southernmost group of the New Siberian Islands in the Arctic seas of northeastern Russia.
The dark blood was found in ice cavities below the belly of the animal. When researchers broke the cavities with a poll pick, the blood came flowing out. The fact surprised them because the temperature was 10C below zero.

"It can be assumed that the blood of mammoths had some cryo-protective properties,” said Semyon Grigoriev, head of the Museum of Mammoths of the Institute of Applied Ecology of the North at the North Eastern Federal University as cited by Interfax news agency.

Mammoth find: Preserved Ice Age giant found with flowing blood in Siberia ? RT News

 

[ScienceRocks]

US Transportation Department backs self-driving cars


Craig Lloyd, May 30th 2013 Discuss [0]
US Transportation Department backs self-driving cars - SlashGear

While self-driving cars have faced a bit of controversy amongst the general public, it seems the government likes the idea for the most part. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which is a branch of the US Department of Transportation, has released a policy that looks to fast-track the development and testing of self-driving cars.

 

[ScienceRocks]

Artificial magnetic monopoles discovered

4 hours ago

A team of researchers from Cologne, Munich and Dresden have managed to create artificial magnetic monopoles. To do this, the scientists merged tiny magnetic whirls, so-called skyrmions. At the point of merging, the physicists were able to create a monopole, which has similar characteristics to a fundamental particle postulated by Paul Dirac in 1931. In addition to fundamental research, the monopoles may also have application potential. The question of whether magnetic whirls can be used in the production of computer components one day is currently being researched by a number of groups worldwide.

Read more at: Artificial magnetic monopoles discovered



Even with defects, graphene is strongest material in the world

In a new study, published in Science May 31, 2013, Columbia Engineering researchers demonstrate that graphene, even if stitched together from many small crystalline grains, is almost as strong as graphene in its perfect crystalline form. This work resolves a contradiction between theoretical simulations, which predicted that grain boundaries can be strong, and earlier experiments, which indicated that they were much weaker than the perfect lattice.

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2013-05-defects-graphene-strongest-material-world.html#jCp

 

[ScienceRocks]

Graphene sensor is 1,000 times more sensitive to light, could enable ultra-low-light photography
By Sebastian Anthony on May 31, 2013 at 12:56 pm
Graphene sensor is 1,000 times more sensitive to light, could enable ultra-low-light photography | ExtremeTech

Hey, historians! Add extremely low-light, broadband photography to graphene’s miraculous list of potential applications. Researchers in Singapore are reporting that they’ve created a graphene photodetector that is roughly 800 times more sensitive than previous graphene photodetectors, and around 10 times more sensitive than the CMOS-based sensors in today’s digital cameras.

 

[ScienceRocks]

Coming to a printer near you: Electronics manufacturing
Coming to a printer near you: Electronics manufacturing | Cutting Edge - CNET News

At PARC, researchers are developing a new technology for printing everything from transistors to smart labels to semiconductors.

PALO ALTO, Calif. -- Got a large roll-to-roll printer that you're not sure what to do with? You might have a future in electronics manufacturing.

It's still very early days, but researchers at the Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) have been taking significant strides in developing a new technology that makes it possible to print electronic components like sensors, transistors, light-emitters, smart tags, flexible batteries, memory, smart labels, and more.

Apple patents point to slimmer battery tech
20:14 31 May 2013 by Paul Marks

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn23631-apple-patents-point-to-slimmer-battery-tech.html

Graphene, the wonder material whose glittering array of electrical and thermal properties won its discoverers a Nobel prize in 2010, could soon be helping Apple's iPhones and iPads pack more power.

The company has filed a US patent application (2013/0136966) on a graphene-based heat sink for the lithium batteries and circuit boards in its tablets and smartphones.

Graphene is a form of carbon that comes in sheets one-atom thick, with its atoms arranged in a honeycomb lattice. It is 10 times better at conducting heat than graphite, which is often used as a heat sink in mobile gadgets.

But in order to adequately cool a battery, a graphite coating is typically 30 micrometres thick. That eats up space within the gadget enclosure that could be used for a bigger battery, explains inventor Ramesh Bhardwaj of Fremont, California, in Apple's patent application.

 

[ScienceRocks]

Printing innovations provide 10-fold improvement in organic electronics

Published: Sunday, June 2, 2013 - 14:01 in Physics & Chemistry

Printing innovations provide 10-fold improvement in organic electronics | e! Science News

This photo shows an array of 1-mm-wide by 2-cm-long single-crystal organic semiconductors. The neatly-aligned blue strips are what provide greater electric charge mobility. The Stanford logo shown here is the same size as a dime.

This scanning electron micrograph shows the micropillars embedded in the shearing blade used in the printing process. The pillars are 35 micrometers by 42 micrometers -- less than half the width of an average human hair in both directions -- and mix the organic semiconductor solution, ensuring it's evenly deposited.

This image shows a cross-polarized optical micrograph comparing a sample of an organic semiconducting film created without micropillars (top) and with micropillars (bottom) at scales of both one millimeter and 50 micrometers. Note the uniformity of the crystals in the bottom image as compared to in the top image.

Through innovations to a printing process, researchers have made major improvements to organic electronics -- a technology in demand for lightweight, low-cost solar cells, flexible electronic displays and tiny sensors.

Organic electronics have great promise for a variety of applications, but even the highest quality films available today fall short in how well they conduct electrical current. The team from the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Stanford University have developed a printing process they call FLUENCE -- fluid-enhanced crystal engineering -- that for some materials results in thin films capable of conducting electricity 10 times more efficiently than those created using conventional methods.

"Even better, most of the concepts behind FLUENCE can scale up to meet industry requirements," said Ying Diao, a SLAC/Stanford postdoctoral researcher and lead author of the study, which appeared today in Nature Materials.

Stefan Mannsfeld, a SLAC materials physicist and one of the principal investigators of the experiment, said the key was to focus on the physics of the printing process rather than the chemical makeup of the semiconductor. Diao engineered the process to produce strips of big, neatly aligned crystals that electrical charge can flow through easily, while preserving the benefits of the "strained lattice" structure and "solution shearing" printing technique previously developed in the lab of Mannsfeld's co-principal investigator, Professor Zhenan Bao of the Stanford Institute for Materials and Energy Sciences, a joint SLAC-Stanford institute.

 

[ScienceRocks]

Bath University uses bacteria for self-healing concrete

You’d think that concrete would last forever. After all, it’s pourable stone, so it should hang around as long as the Rock of Gibraltar. But, under the right (or wrong) conditions, concrete decays with alarming speed. To combat this, researchers at the University of Bath in the UK are working on a self-healing concrete that uses bacteria to seal the cracks that lead to decay. In this way, they hope to cut down on maintenance costs and increase the life of concrete structures.

Concrete is one of the most remarkable building materials of the modern age. It’s pourable into an incredible number of shapes, sets like stone, and when combined with iron rebars is immensely strong. Unfortunately, it is much more vulnerable than people think. Proper design, pouring and curing of concrete structures can go a long way, but one tiny crack can set a building on its way to becoming a pile of rubble.
Bath University uses bacteria for self-healing concrete

 

[ScienceRocks]

Deadly Oklahoma tornado was widest on record




This graphic by the National Weather Service shows the path of an EF5 tornado that swept through the El Reno area in Oklahoma.


OKLAHOMA CITY The deadly tornado that struck near Oklahoma City late last week had a record-breaking width of 2.6 miles and was the second top-of-the-scale EF5 twister to hit the area in less than two weeks, the National Weather Service reported Tuesday.

Tornado in Moore, Okla., was an EF5, the most powerful there is
.

The weather service initially rated the Friday tornado that hit El Reno as an EF3. But the agency upgraded the ranking after surveying damage from the twister, which along with subsequent flooding killed 18 people. The weather service determined that the storm packed winds reaching 295 mph.

The update means the Oklahoma City area has seen two of the extremely rare EF5 tornadoes in only 11 days. The other hit Moore, a city about 25 miles away from El Reno, on May 20, killing 24 people and causing widespread damage.

I guess it all has to do with where it tracks! 295 mph? o'shit! Deadly Oklahoma tornado was widest on record - CBS News

 

[mamooth]

Nearly complete triceratops skeleton found in Wyoming, part of a family group, two adults and one half-size.

http://www.argusleader.com/article/...d-may-provide-treasure-insight?nclick_check=1

Complete triceratops skeletons are a big deal because they're so rare, with only 2 others existing. They tended to die from being eaten by a T. Rex, which would tear them up and scatter the bones all about. Usually, it's just a triceratops head that gets found.