The Homely Scientist

How would you like to have a device that generates electricity just from the vibrations that are all around us?  How about if this device were smaller enough to be used in lots of small devices?  Making things like wireless transmitters small, cheap, and self-powered?  It’s a reality now:

The trick with this generator is efficiency: Its vibrating magnets are 10 times better at generating current than other machines of this sort. The obvious use for this is in wireless sensors, that currently use batteries that need to be replaced, and therefore must be located in accessible spots. With a vibration generator like this, you can stash a sensor wherever you like. Wherever you like.

The generator may also one day be used to power a pacemaker, which would indeed be a funny twist: It would derive its power from the beating of the heart that its job is to keep on track. How’s that for existentialism? Source: Free Energy Isn’t Free: Here’s One Magnetic Free Energy Machine That Actually Works - Gizmodo

Just to recap how this actually works, when you spin magnets around a copper coil you generate current.  Basic stuff … it’s what powers all those wind up radios and flashlights.  Through the same principle and physics these two vibrating magnets do the same thing.  If you want to know more about the physics behind this Wikipedia’s article on electrical generators is very cool.

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Insulating buildings is one of the most important aspects of the building process.  Insulation not only has to, well, insulate, but it also has to not grow nasty things and last for a long time (who wanted to rip open all their outside walls every few years–if ever).  Insulation, which is typically fiberglass now, does take resources to make and isn’t recyclable (although it is made from recycled glass).  Now, what if you could grow insulation?  Yeah, grow.  Couple smart guys figured out how to make a growing medium for oyster mushroom spores that could become suitable insulation material:

Placed in a dark environment, the cells start to grow, digesting the starch as food and sprouting thousands of root-like cellular strands. A week to two weeks later, a 1-inch-thick panel of insulation is fully grown. It’s then dried to prevent fungal growth, making it unlikely to trigger mold and fungus allergies, according to Bayer. The finished product resembles a giant cracker in texture.

“It really allows for a myriad of uses,” said McIntyre. He said they’ve envisioned modifying the product to make structural panels that could be grown and assembled onsite to produce sustainable homes.

“Green building materials should be evaluated on the idea of cradle to cradle,” said Evelyne Michaut of the Natural Resources Defense Council.

In the cradle-to-cradle industrial model, goods should either be fully biodegradable or reusable, limiting waste and pollution, according to Michaut, a sustainable city advocate from Santa Monica, Calif.

“That’s the ultimate environmental reference,” she said, adding that it seems like Greensulate is on its way to fulfilling that criteria.

For Bayer and McIntyre, their next step will be creating larger pieces of Greensulate to use in building a wall. From there, they’ll perform further testing to see how the product stands up to various elements, including saturation and humidity. McIntyre said they have one two-year-old sample that’s been exposed to the elements and shown no sign of degradation. Source: Mushrooms become source for eco-building - Yahoo! News

Cool stuff.  Of course, it’s a little ways from being a part of your next building project, but it shows the amazing untapped potential of natural materials.

Hat tip: Boing Boing

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LOL!  Not really, but learning from how gecko’s stick to walls and even glass, scientists are working on better and better adhesives.

Unbundled, their nanotube tape was nearly as adhesive as a live gecko, but as these same tubes were clustered into bundles, their strength went up. By the time the authors optimized the combination of fiber length and bundle width, their tape was over four times stronger than a gecko: a square centimeter was sufficient to support nearly four kilograms. Although this was weaker than the initial strength of a standard piece of adhesive tape, the “gecko tape” had staying power. Its adhesive properties remained stable over time, while those of the adhesive tape dropped below those of the gecko tape after about five minutes.

Because of its reliance on van der Waals forces, the gecko tape had some unusual properties. These forces can work between any two surfaces, allowing the tape to stick to Teflon with roughly half the efficiency of its adhesion to a charged surface. Because the forces are proportional to surface area, peeling the tape works remarkably well: for most angles, peeling gently reduced the surface area, allowing the tape to come off with little force and no damage. Source: Gecko-inspired tape sticks to Teflon

See van der Waals forces are a really cool part of physics.  It’s attraction between molecules that can now be tapped into with carbon nanotubes.  Will we see this gecko tape soon? Probably not, but we could have some cool products coming from nanotube research anytime now.

Hat tip to Wired

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You say to yourself, “and…so…”, okay read, please:

Raydiance has purportedly developed a laser that “looks like an ordinary slide projector,” yet can emit “burst of photons so intense that it can vaporize matter without creating heat.” Its uses could span every area from removing tattoos (yes, even Zune ones) without burning the skin, killing cancer cells without affecting healthy ones, or handling any undercover task that the military may require. Source: Raydiance laser can vaporize matter sans heat - Engadget

Yes, this is huge.  Okay the weapon thing is creepy, but think of being able to get rid of stuff, mostly since matter can neither be created nor destroyed, without all the heat generated.  See lasers are great at burning things.  That’s why tattoo removal hurts more than getting them.  It freakin’ burns.  Now a laser that doesn’t do this can be used on all kinds of sensitive parts of people.

I can also imagine using them to dispose of waste, harmful and general, maybe even power generation and materials science.  Exciting times!

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While biodiesel is cool (and according to the article below you can drink it…eeewww) manufacturing is still not 100% there.  So here comes the handy home biodiesel test:

Biodiesel is sort of like buying cheese. Some of it is fantastic, and some isn’t so hot.

Enter the pHLip, a testing system from CytoCulture, which specializes in oil spill technology. Place a few drops of the biodiesel you are thinking of buying into the vial, shake it up, and then let it stand. If the fluid on the bottom stays cherry red, you have yourself good biodiesel, says Randall von Wedel, principal researcher at the company. Source: A handy home test for biodiesel | Tech news blog - CNET News.com

Okay, one problem that I see is how are you going to do this at the gas station?  I see this is better for a local operation, but still a great thing.

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 Today is not one of my better post title days…regardless…

Jean-Baptiste Denys, personal physician to France’s Louis XIV, is generally credited with performing the first human blood transfusion, although some sources award that distinction to Englishman William Lower. What is not in dispute is the year — 1667 — and the patient — a 15-year-old boy who had been bled so much by his doctor that he required an infusion of blood.

The source is also not under dispute: Whoever the physician was, he used a sheep’s blood. And, somehow, the kid recovered. Source: June 15, 1667: First Human Blood Transfusion Is Performed

Sheep’s blood!  Egad!  Well good thing the kids lived.  Hmm, wonder if there were previous attempts.  Did you know that blood typing (A+, A-, O+ …) wasn’t figured out until 1907!  Holey smokes!

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Pope Benedict XVI might not get kudos, or even consideration, for his green leanings, but he can certainly put his money (not to mention buildings) where his mouth is:

Yes, indeed, it’s a definite move toward green as the roof of the Pope Paul VI auditorium will be replaced next year with solar panels, a reflection of Pope Benedict XVI’s concern about energy use and conservation. Source: » The Vatican Goes Green » Blog Archive   Alice Hill’s Real Tech News - Independent Tech

So why, frankly, aren’t more places doing this?  How many large roofs are just sitting there doing nothing but shedding rain when they could be used to generate energy?  What about small wind turbines on the tops of skyscrapers?  While all our energy woes can’t be solved with solutions like these, they can put a dent in them.  Also, we all know that as these technologies are deployed more and more some smart cookie will say “hey I think I can improve on this…” and well you know the rest.

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 There are very few medical advances that hold both tremendous promise and equal controversy as embryonic stem cells.  Stem cells have the ability to “become” (grow into) any cell in the body.  Embryonic stem stems are the most powerful stem cells, for obvious reasons–they need to make a complete person.  One problem, the only source of embryonic stem cells are human embryos and obtaining them, means destruction of the embryo.  I will not get into this controversy here.  I read today that scientists have been able to take stems cells from mice skin and make them behave like embryonic ones:

(AP) Three teams of scientists say they have produced the equivalent of embryonic stem cells, at least in mice, without taking the controversial step of destroying embryos.
Their procedure makes ordinary skin cells behave like stem cells. If the same can be done with human cells — a big if — the procedure could lead to breakthrough medical treatments without the contentious ethical and political debates surrounding the use of embryos. Source: Stem Cell Breakthrough?, Scientists Say They Have Produced The Equivalent Of Embryonic Stem Cells In Mice - CBS News

The potential here is tremendous.  We have unlimited skin stem cells and getting a few is no problem at all.  If this pans out in people, then the promise of helping cure a myriad of diseases (diabetes, Alzheimers, Parkinsons, and more) could be realized.  Let’s hope so. 

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