Electricity from the marshes. An unexpected source of new, clean energy has been found: the Plant-Microbial Fuel Cell that can generate electricity from the natural interaction between living plant roots and soil bacteria.
The technique already works on a small scale and will soon be applied in larger marshland areas throughout the world. On 23 November, researcher Marjolein Helder will defend her PhD research on generating electricity via plants at Wageningen University, part of Wageningen UR. She has also founded a spin-off company called Plant-e with her colleague David Strik. The Plant-Microbial Fuel Cell draws electricity from the soil while the plants continue to grow. Plants produce organic material via photosynthesis. The Plant-Microbial Fuel Cell can currently generate 0.4 Watt per square metre of plant growth. Marshlands Plant-Microbial Fuel Cells can be used on various scales. What do fruits and vegetables look like inside an MRI? Short answer: "Whoa.".
Artichoke + MRI + GIF = Awesomeness. About two years ago, Andy Ellison needed to test one of the MRI machines he works with at his job at Boston University Medical School.
He reached for an orange. The result was stunning: Since then, he's been imaging fruits and vegetables of all stripes, and turning the results into GIFs which he showcases on his site Inside Insides. As he explained to me via email, "When you MRI anything, you acquire the image slice by slice. I take the scan and export all slices as images, and build them into an animated GIF file, which is the easiest way to show all the slices.
Below are a few of these beautiful little films, a tour of nature's insides made possible by the marriage of MRI and GIF technologies. Artichoke: Apologies for the pagination, but the article wouldn't load properly with so many GIFs on it, so we had to break it up. The L-Space Web: Death and What Comes Next. The L-Space Web Copyright © Terry Pratchett 2002 When Death met the philosopher, the philosopher said, rather excitedly: "At this point, you realise, I'm both dead and not dead.
" There was a sigh from Death. Oh dear, one of those, he thought. This is going to be about quantum again.
MoodINQ - Programmable Tattoo System. 2012 March 12 - The Scale of the Universe Interactive. Discover the cosmos!
Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2012 March 12 The Scale of the Universe - Interactive Flash Animation Credit & Copyright: Cary & Michael Huang Explanation: What does the universe look like on small scales? On large scales? Tomorrow's picture: dust before galaxies Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)NASA Official: Phillip Newman Specific rights apply.NASA Web Privacy Policy and Important NoticesA service of:ASD at NASA / GSFC& Michigan Tech.