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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.
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.
Trees could be the ultimate in green power - tech - 10 September 2009
Browse around the organisational structure for each Government department. Details are shown for all Ministers and key Civil Servants. Explore the searchable database to view Government expenditure, which can be sorted by department, recipient or value. Search and read about all Government opportunities, tenders and contracts worth more than £10,000.
data.gov.uk | Opening up government
The Oracle of Bacon
Hey, iPhone, iPod, and iPad users! Check out the Six Degrees iOS App . ( more ...) Android users, here's yours . ( more ...)
Internet Engineering Task Force
The mission of the IETF is to make the Internet work better by producing high quality, relevant technical documents that influence the way people design, use, and manage the Internet. Newcomers to the IETF should start here . Join the Internet Society at Global INET 2012 in Geneva on 22-24 April 2012 to celebrate 20 years advancing the open development, evolution and use of the Internet for the benefit of all people throughout the world. Meet and network with policy makers, technologists, government representatives and business executives from around the globe to learn how they are addressing issues that will shape the Internet's future. ISOC is a non-profit organization founded in 1992 to provide leadership in Internet-related standards, education, and policy. It is dedicated to ensuring the open development, evolution and use of the Internet for the benefit of people throughout the world.W3C announces today a Workshop on Using Open Data: policy modeling, citizen empowerment, data journalism . For many years, W3C has been a keen promoter of Open Data, fostering a culture in which public administrations make their data available, ideally in machine-processable formats. Many governments have embraced the idea with enthusiasm, setting up national data portals. As part of the FP7-funded Crossover Project, W3C and the European Commission are running a Workshop to ask a simple question: what is all the 'new' government open data being used for? The Workshop takes place 19-20 June in Brussels, Belgium at the European Commission Headquarters.
World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)
RSS 2.0 Specification (version 2.0.11)
RSS is a dialect of XML. All RSS files must conform to the XML 1.0 specification , as published on the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) website. A summary of RSS version history . At the top level, a RSS document is a element, with a mandatory attribute called version, that specifies the version of RSS that the document conforms to.
Slimane Adjerid (b. February 13, 1955) is a professor of mathematics at Virginia Polytechnic Institute. He received his Ph.D. (1985) and M.Sc. (1982) degree in mathematics from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and his B.Sc. from Houari Boumedienne University of Sciences and Technology, Algeria.