Sunday, January 19, 2014
Fwd: Catalyst
Another Photoelectrochemical Catalyst
'An improved, cost-effective catalyst for water-splitting devices
by Staff Writers
Lausanne, Switzerland (SPX) Jan 16, 2014
Publishing in Nature Communications, an EPFL-led team of scientists has found a method to create a high-efficiency, scalable solar water splitting device using cheap materials…
One of the most sustainable methods of producing hydrogen is photoelectrochemical (PEC) water-splitting. Solar energy is used to break water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen through a process called "hydrogen evolution reaction".
This reaction requires a catalyst, which is a chemical agent that increases its speed. In PEC water-splitting devices, a common catalyst used to split water is platinum, which is deposited on the surface of the solar panel's photocathode - the solar panel's electrode that converts light into electric current.
A research team at EPFL has now found a way to make efficient solar-powered water splitting devices using abundant and cheap materials. The group of Xile Hu developed a molybdenum-sulfide catalyst for the hydrogen evolution reaction, and the group of Michael Gratzel developed copper(I) oxide as a photocathode.
The researchers found that the molybdenum sulfide can be deposited on the copper(I) oxide photocathode for use in PEC water splitting through a simple deposition process that can be easily expanded onto a large scale.
The technique shows comparable efficiency to other hydrogen evolution reaction catalysts like platinum, it preserves the optical transparency for the light-harvesting surface and it shows improved stability under acidic conditions, which could translate into lower maintenance.
But more importantly, both the catalyst and the photocathode are made with cheap, earth-abundant materials that could greatly reduce the cost of PEC water-splitting devices in the future. According to senior author Xile Hu, the work represents a state-of-the-art example for solar hydrogen production devices.'
Friday, January 17, 2014
Fwd: Google contacts
'Google's smart contact lens: what it does and how it works
Wearables may be on everyone's list as the major tech trend of the year, but Google just kicked it up to a whole new level. The company announced a project to make a smart contact lens on its official blog Thursday.
But the lens isn't going to be used to deliver your e-mail straight into your skull — at least not yet. This project is working to tackle one of the biggest health problems facing the country today: diabetes.
The soft contact lens that Google's is introducing — it's still just a prototype — houses a sensor between two layers of lenses that measures the glucose levels in tears. The lens also features a small — really small — antenna, capacitor and controller, so that the information gathered from the lens can move from your eye to a device where that data can be read and analyzed.
According to a short explanation of the technology provided by Google, the chip and sensors are mounted on a small plastic-like film. A tiny pinhole in the lens lets tear fluid seep over the glucose monitor to get regular readings. Right now, the company said, it can get a level reading once every second.'
Since when did Google get into the medical devices business?
Wednesday, January 15, 2014
Fwd: Sugar/Liver
'Nov. 1, 2013 — Despite current beliefs, sugar intake is not directly associated with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, according to a new study in Gastroenterology, the official journal of the American Gastroenterological Association. Rather, high-calorie diets promote the progression of this serious form of liver disease.
Researchers conducted a double-blind study of healthy, but centrally overweight men to compare the effects of high intakes of two types of sugar, glucose and fructose, in two conditions -- weight-maintaining (moderate-calorie diet) and weight-gaining (high-calorie diet). In the weight-maintaining period, men on neither diet developed any significant changes to the liver. However, in the weight-gaining period, both diets produced equivalent features of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, including steatosis (fatty liver) and elevated serum transaminase and triglycerides. These findings indicate that fructose and glucose have comparable effects on one's liver, and calorie intake is the factor responsible for the progression of liver disease.
"Based on the results of our study, recommending a low-fructose or low-glycemic diet to prevent nonalcoholic fatty liver disease is unjustified," said Professor Ian A. Macdonald, study author and faculty of medicine and health sciences, University of Nottingham, UK. "The best advice to give a patient is to maintain a healthy lifestyle with diet and exercise. Our study serves as a warning that even short changes in lifestyle can have profound impacts on your liver."'
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/11/131101112406.htm
Wednesday, January 8, 2014
Re: Flow Battery
'A team of Harvard scientists and engineers has demonstrated a new type of battery that could fundamentally transform the way electricity is stored on the grid, making power from renewable energy sources such as wind and solar far more economical and reliable…
The paper reports a metal-free flow battery that relies on the electrochemistry of naturally abundant, inexpensive, small organic (carbon-based) molecules called quinones, which are similar to molecules that store energy in plants and animals.'
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/01/140108154238.htm
Friday, January 3, 2014
Monday, December 9, 2013
This woman essentially invented computer programming languages.
The Google doodle honors the birthday of Grace Hopper.
Although COBOL is tedious compared to modern computer languages, she got the ball rolling by inventing the first computer languages.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_Hopper
Sunday, December 1, 2013
Tuesday, November 26, 2013
Stunning details of brain connections revealed
beyond belief, said Smith. "One synapse, by itself, is more like a
microprocessor -- with both memory-storage and information-processing
elements -- than a mere on/off switch. In fact, one synapse may
contain on the order of 1,000 molecular-scale switches. A single human
brain has more switches than all the computers and routers and
Internet connections on Earth," he said.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/11/101117121803.htm
Tuesday, November 12, 2013
Monday, November 4, 2013
No calculator nor computer can do this without special software. It is too many digits.
- In 1977 at the Southern Methodist University she was asked to give the 23rd root of a 201-digit number; she answered in 50 seconds.[1][4] Her answer—546,372,891—was confirmed by calculations done at the U.S. Bureau of Standards by the UNIVAC 1101 computer, for which a special program had to be written to perform such a large calculation.[11]
- On June 18, 1980, she demonstrated the multiplication of two 13-digit numbers — 7,686,369,774,870 × 2,465,099,745,779 — picked at random by the Computer Department ofImperial College, London. She correctly answered 18,947,668,177,995,426,462,773,730 in 28 seconds.[2][3] This event is mentioned in the 1982 Guinness Book of Records.[2][3]
Fwd: 20% chance of Goldilocks
'Kepler space telescope finds Earth-size, potentially habitable planets are common
Roughly one in every five sunlike stars is orbited by a potentially habitable, Earth-size planet, meaning that the universe has abundant real estate that could be congenial to life, according to a new analysis of observations by NASA's Kepler space telescope.
Our Milky Way galaxy alone could harbor tens of billions of rocky worlds where water might be liquid at the surface, according to the report, which was published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and discussed at a news conference in California. '
Friday, November 1, 2013
Thursday, October 31, 2013
Fwd: Dark Matter
'The former Homestake Gold Mine in Lead, S.D., has a hallowed place in the history of physics as a spot where nothing happens.
It was there, in the 1970s, that Raymond Davis Jr. attempted to catch neutrinos, spooky subatomic particles emitted by the sun, in a vat of cleaning fluid a mile underground and for a long time came up empty. For revolutionizing the study of those particles, he shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2002.
On Wednesday, an international team of physicists based in the same cavern of the former mine announced a new milestone of frustration, but also hope — this time in the search for dark matter, the mysterious, invisible ingredient that astronomers say makes up a quarter of the cosmos.
In the first three months of running the biggest, most sensitive dark matter detector yet — a vat of 368 kilograms of liquid xenon cooled to minus 150 degrees Fahrenheit — the researchers said they had not seen a trace of the clouds of particles that theorists say should be wafting through space, the galaxy, the Earth and, of course, ourselves, knocking out at least one controversial class of dark matter candidates.
But the experiment has just begun and will run for all of next year. The detector, already twice as sensitive as the next best one, will gain another factor of sensitivity in the coming run.
"Just because we don't see anything in the first run doesn't mean we won't see anything in the second," said Richard Gaitskell, a professor of physics at Brown University and a spokesman for an international collaboration that operates the experiment known as LUX, for the Large Underground Xenon dark matter experiment.
As has become de rigueur for such occasions, the scientists took pride and hope in how clearly they did not see anything. "In 25 years of searching, this is the cleanest signal I've ever seen," Dr. Gaitskell said in an interview.'
Tuesday, October 29, 2013
Dendrites
‘Dendrites, the branch-like projections of neurons, were once believed to be passive wiring in the brain.
Now, researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have discovered that these dendrites do more than just relay information from one neuron to the next. They actively process information, multiplying the brain’s processing power.’
… I believe that we can form new dendrites all the time.
Thursday, October 24, 2013
RE: Expansion
This notion that nothing occurred before the big bang because space time didn’t exist before the big bang, per a video on I saw recently on youtube, seems to me like a flaw in the space time idea.
Everything in the universe apparently has a cause, which means everything has something that precedes it. Even the string theory idea that the universe resulted from the collision of 4 dimensional objects called branes still implies events before the big bang.
I think that space time is a nice mathematical model that explains observed phenomena, but it doesn’t necessarily make it correct.
Best wishes,
John Coffey
Sunday, October 20, 2013
Fwd: Oreo
'Connecticut College students and a professor of neuroscience have found "America's favorite cookie" is just as addictive as cocaine – at least for lab rats. And just like most humans, rats go for the middle first.
In a study designed to shed light on the potential addictiveness of high-fat/ high-sugar foods, Professor Joseph Schroeder and his students found rats formed an equally strong association between the pleasurable effects of eating Oreos and a specific environment as they did between cocaine or morphine and a specific environment. They also found that eating cookies activated more neurons in the brain's "pleasure center" than exposure to drugs of abuse. '
'A recent study was picked up a lot by the media, claiming that "Oreos are as addictive as drugs". Just to get that out of the way as soon as possible, this headline, as flashy and attractive it is, is flawed. I'll explain why in this post…
The question which naturally arises after that is: If you stop eating Oreos, do you experience Oreo withdrawal? This is basically the difference between things you really like and things you're addicted to – the difference between physiological addiction (addiction to a drug) and psychological addiction.'
http://www.zmescience.com/medicine/mind-and-brain/oreo-addictive-drugs-16102013/