The changes aim to allay concerns that chemicals used in a common method of extracting natural gas can contaminate groundwater.
From Popular Science – New Technology, Science News, The Future Now: In Successful Test, Microsubmarines Help Clean Up Oil Spills
Oil-Cleaning Microsubs Guix et al/ACS Nano
These microsubs could also patrol your bloodstreamTiny, self-propelled microsubmarines could pick up and tote droplets of oil away from contaminated waters, according to a new study. The cone-shaped objects are extremely water-repellent, improving their oil-grabbing capabilities, and could serve as simple helpers in oil spills.
Joseph Wang at the University of California−San Diego and colleagues in Spain note that small tubular micro-machines have already proven useful in biology, with their ability to work as receptors or drug delivery systems. But they’re the first team to test them as environmental helpers.
The cone-machines are made from self-assembled monolayers and have special chemical properties that encourage them to pick up oil. They move quickly through the water and require very little fuel, so they could work efficiently. In lab tests, Wang and colleagues proved the machines could move through water and pick up both olive oil and motor oil, transporting collections of droplets around.
Their water-repellency could also pave the way for new drug-delivering molecules or for transferring liquids in otherwise immiscible environments, the authors say.
The devices are about 10 times thinner than a human hair, so presumably you would need epic fleets of them to make a difference in massive oil spills like the Deepwater Horizon disaster. Large-scale cleanup operations would also require different types of motors, perhaps driven by magnetic fields or electrical current, the authors note. Still, the machines could be more environmentally friendly than new types of soaps or other absorbent material.
The study appears in the journal ACS Nano.
from Popular Science – New Technology, Science News, The Future Now
From Engadget: Google badmouths HTTP behind its back, proposes SPDY as a speedy successor
If there’s anything that Google doesn’t like, it’s things that collect dust. The company is famous for its annual spring cleaning efforts, in which the firm rids itself of redundant and dead-end projects, along with more bullish moves, such as its push to overhaul the internet’s DNS system. Now it’s looking to replace HTTP with a new protocol known as SPDY, and to that end, it’s demonstrating the potential speed gains that one might expect on a mobile network. According to the company’s benchmarks, mean page load times on the Galaxy Nexus are 23 percent faster with the new system, and it hypothesizes that further optimizations can be made for 3G and 4G networks. To its credit, Google has already implemented SPDY in Chrome, and the same is true for Firefox and Amazon Silk. Even Microsoft appears to be on-board. As a means to transition, the company proposes an Apache 2.2 module known as mod_spdy, which allows web servers to take advantage of features such as stream multiplexing and header compression. As for HTTP, it’s no doubt been a reliable companion, but it seems that it’ll need to work a bit harder to earn its keep. Stay weird, Google, the internet wouldn’t be the same without you.
from Engadget
From EPIC FAIL Funny Videos and Epic Fail Funny Pictures: WIN!: One Trip Grip Grocery Bag Holder WIN
From Discover Magazine: Mutant flu paper is finally published, reveals pandemic potential of wild viruses | Not Exactly Rocket Science
Am I the only one that thinks this is a bad idea??!! Â o.O
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It’s finally out. After months of will-they-won’t they and should-they-shouldn’t-they deliberations, Nature has finally published a paper about a mutant strain of bird flu that can spread between mammals.
The strain was produced by Yoshihiro Kawaoka from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who was trying to understand whether wild bird flu viruses have the potential to start a pandemic. These viruses can occasionally infect humans, but so far, they’ve been contained by their inability to efficiently jump from human to human. Kawaoka’s work makes it clear that they can evolve that ability.
Kawaoka’s study, along with a similar one from Ron Fouchier, has been the subject of intense debate for the last several months (catch up on the backstory here). What are the benefits of the research, and do they outweigh the risks? Now that the paper is finally out, we can start to answer those questions.
I’ve written about the paper for Nature News, focusing very heavily on the science rather than the politics. Head over there for a tighter version of this story. In this post, I’m going to highlight four important themes from the paper.
One: H5N1 can evolve to spread …
from Discover Magazine
From Kotaku: This Guy Created Angry Bird’s Physics and All he Got Was This Lousy Sweatshirt
From Popular Science – New Technology, Science News, The Future Now: Turbine Condenses Clean Water From the Air and Generates Wind Power At the Same Time
A new type of wind turbine harvests not only electricity from the wind, but clean water from the air, by condensing humidity from even the driest climes. One prototype turbine is apparently collecting 16.3 gallons of water an hour from the desert air over Abu Dhabi, according to the company that builds it.
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Technology, Rebecca Boyle, condensation, drinking water, water filter, wind energy, wind turbines
French company Eole Water produces several water-harvesting technologies, including the WMS1000 wind turbine, a harvester powered by a 30-kilowatt solar panel and a water condenser that can connect to an existing power grid. The company’s founder, Marc Parent, started collecting water from an air conditioner while he lived in the Caribbean, and later conceived the idea to generate water from atmospheric moisture.
The turbine works like a typical wind turbine, with three upwind blades spinning to generate electricity. Then in a separate process, air is sucked into the turbine’s nose and sent through a cooling compressor, which extracts moisture from the air. Water droplets drip down stainless steel pipes inside the turbine shaft and are collected at the base, which houses a filtration and purification system. The system is powered by the wind turbine.
The company claims one turbine can produce up to 1,000 liters of water every day, depending on the humidity and wind conditions. The company says it could help remote communities in need of clean drinking water, especially in Indonesia and countries in Africa. For now, one turbine costs $790,000, but the cost could come down if the company starts building lots of them, according to a spokesman who spoke to CNN.
The prototype in Abu Dhabi has been in operation since October, the company says.
[via CNN]
from Popular Science – New Technology, Science News, The Future Now