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Apsr2001.pdf (application/pdf Object) Plastic converts raindrops to electricity. The pitter-patter of raindrops on a plastic panel could be a new source of electricity thanks to work done by researchers at France’s Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) in Grenoble. While humans have harnessed the power of rain for thousands of years, energy is usually extracted from rainwater as it flows downhill in a river or stream.

Now, Jean-Jacques Chaillout and colleagues have created a panel that converts the impact energy of falling raindrops directly into electricity. Their device uses a plastic called polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) that vibrates when struck by raindrops. PVDF is a piezoelectric, which means that some vibrational energy is converted into electricity. Such devices could power remote sensors and other electronic devices, claim the researchers. Impact energies The team settled on a device based on a 10 cm strip of PVDF just 25 µm thick, which they then built and tested (Smart Mater.

Trees could be the ultimate in green power - tech - 10 September 2009. Shoving electrodes into tree trunks to harvest electricity may sound like the stuff of dreams, but the idea is increasingly attracting interest. If we can make it work, forests could power their own sensor networks to monitor the health of the ecosystem or provide early warning of forest fires. Children the world over who have tried the potato battery experiment know that plant material can be a source of electricity.

In this case, the energy comes from reduction and oxidation reactions eating into the electrodes, which are made of two different metals – usually copper and zinc. The same effect was thought to lie behind claims that connecting electrodes driven into a tree trunk and the ground nearby can provide a current. But last year Andreas Mershin's team at MIT showed that using electrodes made of the same metal also gives a current, meaning another effect must be at work.

Practical power Green power race More From New Scientist Promoted Stories Gmail is....OUT! Recommended by. Data.gov.uk | Opening up government. The Oracle of Bacon. Sense tutorial Building Blocks program start - T1. Untitled. LibraryThing | Catalog your books online.

Larry Ellison - What The Hell Is Cloud Computing? Internet Engineering Task Force. World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) RSS 2.0 Specification (version 2.0.11) RSS 2.0 Specification Editor's Note: This is the current version of the RSS 2.0 specification, published by the RSS Advisory Board on March 30, 2009 as version 2.0.11. The current version of the RSS spec will always be available at this link, all changes have been logged and other revisions have been archived.

Contents What is RSS? RSS is a Web content syndication format. Its name is an acronym for Really Simple Syndication. RSS is a dialect of XML. A summary of RSS version history. At the top level, a RSS document is a <rss> element, with a mandatory attribute called version, that specifies the version of RSS that the document conforms to. Subordinate to the <rss> element is a single <channel> element, which contains information about the channel (metadata) and its contents. Sample files Here are sample files for: RSS 0.91, 0.92 and 2.0. Note that the sample files may point to documents and services that no longer exist. About this document Required channel elements Optional channel elements. Contents from BCS Glossary of Computing and ICT. Welcome to webopedia.com. VisualRoute. Cassini Solstice Mission.