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I think some of the stuff is lovely - like the solar system coming out of the TV, but most of it just creeps me out. I don't want everything to be on glass, it just makes everything less tangible and less personal, almost cold. I like having curtains up to my windows, I like cooking on a gas hob, I like reading from a real book, and I like shopping for clothes by looking around the shop and browsing, not by watching them all move about on a screen. Moreover, where will it go from here - there are advances in technology which are, in my opinion, unnecessary, almost making life too easy and teaching us to be lazy. Next thing you know it will be okay not to turn up to work in a morning because you can just video in; if you're ill then fair enough, but really, just because you can't be bothered? This is wrong.
A beautiful but creepy vision of the "smart glass" future
IBM and a research group in Singapore have engineered a new kind of synthetic, biodegradable nano particle that could be used to attack bacteria that have become resistant to antibiotics. The researchers believe that the nanomedicine breakthrough could eventually be used to fight infectious diseases better than antibiotics. If it works, the nanomedicine could save countless lives and protect people from illnesses that arise from bacterial infections, like staph. Using a trick from chip manufacturing, the researchers figured out how to isolate certain kinds of cells and attack them. That gets around the problem of many drugs today that kill off the good red blood cells at the same time that they eradicate bad cells. The researchers said the synthetic polymers they created can seek out bacteria cells and destroy their membrane walls.
IBM researchers create nanomedicine to kill bacteria where antibiotics fail
By mimicking the essential process that allows plants to produce energy, an MIT researcher has managed to create electricity out of water more efficiently than conventional solar cells, to the point where one and a half bottles of wastewater could power an entire house for a day. Plants, being extremely clever, somehow manage to use sunlight to crack water into oxygen and hydrogen. They combine the hydrogen with carbon dioxide to make sugar (which is what I would do, 'cause sugar is good stuff), but we humans have been trying to figure out for about a century how to skip the sugar step and just recombine that oxygen and hydrogen back into water to generate electricity.
A bottle of wastewater could be powering your house by next year
How To Make A Burning Laser Flashlight (Gadgets)
How to turn a Minimag flashlight into a burning laser! CAUTION! As you know lasers can be dangerous.
24 January 2011 Last updated at 06:19 ET By James Gallagher Health reporter, BBC News Blocking a gene could prevent cancer cells spreading A gene which encourages cancer to move around the body has been discovered by the University of East Anglia. Experiments on tissue cultures, published in Oncogene , suggest that blocking it would prevent cancers spreading. The researchers hope their work will lead to a new generation of cancer drugs within the decade.
Blocking a gene stops cancer cells spreading
Electromagnetic Coilgun Doesn’t Need a License
Robert Wilsford created an Electromagnetic Coilgun from some very common items that can be found easily on the websites, so you can also try this and make a nice gadget sitting at your home sweet home. I like guns a lot, but we can’t keep them at our homes without a license but this gun doesn’t need any license such as the Steampunk Coilgun . Well! If you are arsenal lover like me, needless to say, you would dare to make this gun.
Video: Dust Ball Robotic Vacuum Smartly Sucks Debris As It Tumbles Across Your Floor
Dust Ball Dust Ball the robotic vacuum and his charger. Dave Hakkens Roombas are cute and everything, but when they annoy you, they don’t respond well to being kicked in the side.
If you've decided to use a full-fledged Steadicam in your next indie blockbuster you'd better make sure you have the budget -- they can run upwards of $45,000. Sure, there are cheaper options out there, some more sophisticated than others , but none are quite as amazing as this. It's the Chicken Powered Steadicam from Pennywhistle Productions and it is, quite simply, a chicken with a camera on its head, making use of the bird's stabilizing vestibulo-ocular reflex. In the video, embedded for your enjoyment below, you can see that version 1.0 didn't go so well.
Chicken Powered Steadicam proves poultry has a future in Hollywood (video)
Textured substrate increases efficiency of polymer solar cells by 20 percent
Researchers have created a process to produce a light-absorbing layer on textured substrates to improve the efficiency of polymer solar cells (Image: Jeremy Levine Design via Flickr) Image Gallery (2 images) The idea of boosting the performance of solar cells by coating them with a textured substrate is commonly used in silicon-based cells. The idea is to traps more light so that it bounces around inside the cell instead of reflecting back out, but for a number of reasons, attempts to use textured substrates in polymer solar cells have failed. Now researchers from Iowa State University and the Ames Laboratory have developed a process of producing a thin and uniform light-absorbing layer on textured substrates that improves the efficiency of polymer solar cells by 20 percent.
A US company is taking plastics recycling to another level - turning them back into the oil they were made from, and gas. All that is needed, claims Global Resource Corporation (GRC), is a finely tuned microwave and - hey presto! - a mix of materials that were made from oil can be reduced back to oil and combustible gas (and a few leftovers). Key to GRC's process is a machine that uses 1200 different frequencies within the microwave range, which act on specific hydrocarbon materials. As the material is zapped at the appropriate wavelength, part of the hydrocarbons that make up the plastic and rubber in the material are broken down into diesel oil and combustible gas.
Giant microwave turns plastic back to oil - environment - 26 June 2007
So you’re a conservationist, eh? Can you prove it? Can you stop washing your hands before this fish runs out of water? For his appropriately titled Poor Little Fishbowl Sink , designer Yan Lu created a very direct incentive to minimize water usage – when you turn the faucet on, the water level in the fishbowl decreases. It reminds us how precious this resource is, and how our everyday actions can affect the creatures around us.