The US should invest in farmers' markets, report says O’Hara estimates that these funds, along with farm to school programs, could help create as many as 13,500 new jobs. The report also recommends that the government invest more money in local infrastructure, such as meat-processing facilities, to increase the efficiency of small-scale farmers. Recent posts Subscribe Today to the Monitor Click Here for your FREE 30 DAYS ofThe Christian Science MonitorWeekly Digital Edition Lastly, the report recommends that the food stamp program be expanded to allow low-income residents to purchase high-quality produce at farmers markets. “If the US government diverted just a small amount of the massive subsidies it lavishes on industrial agriculture to support these markets and small local farmers, it would not only improve American diets, it would generate tens of thousands of new jobs,” O’Hara concludes. • Graham Salinger is a research intern for the Nourishing the Planet project.
Scientists Create New Invisible Material US debt problem visualized: Debt stacked in 100 dollar bills Scientists transform cement into liquid metal It's not the same as turning lead into gold, but scientists at the Illinois-based Argonne National Laboratory and the Japan Synchrotron Radiation Research Institute/SPring-8 have developed a method for turning cement into a liquid metal semiconductor. The process sounds like a mad scientist's invention. It involves equipment like an aerodynamic levitator and a carbon dioxide laser beam. The material in question is mayenite, a calcium aluminum oxide material that is part of alimuna cement. "This new material has lots of applications, including as thin-film resistors used in liquid-crystal displays, basically the flat panel computer monitor that you are probably reading this from at the moment," Argonne physicist Chris Benmore said Monday in a statement. The results is being published under the title "Network topology for the formation of solvated electrons in binary CaO-Al2O3 composition glasses" in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal. Score one for modern alchemy.
Agriculture Defense Coalition Graphene Is The Strongest Material In The World Even When It Has Defects, Research Finds Clean Power Published on June 2nd, 2013 | by James Ayre June 2nd, 2013 by James Ayre Graphene is the strongest material in the world, even when it has notable defects, new research has found. Even when stitched together from numerous small crystalline grains, rather than being created directly in its perfect crystalline form, the material possesses its trademark and remarkable strength. This new research contradicts previous theoretical simulations which predicted that such defect-containing graphene would be much weaker than graphene in a perfect lattice. Image Credit: Illustration by Andrew Shea for Columbia Engineering It’s been said that graphene is so strong that “it would take an elephant, balanced on a pencil, to break through a sheet of graphene the thickness of Saran Wrap.” Graphene is — essentially — just a single atomic layer of carbon that is structured as a honeycomb lattice. The primary way that graphene is currently manufactured is via chemical vapor deposition (CVD).
Researchers spin a yarn into a muscle An unusually simple approach to artificial muscles – based on high-strength polymer fibres – has been developed by an international team of researchers. Rather than needing sophisticated or expensive materials, the muscles can be produced from simple polymers that are used to make fishing-line or sewing threads. When heated, these fibres can shorten or lengthen far more than biological muscle, and could be used for applications as diverse as temperature-sensitive window shutters, "smart" clothing and robotics. Synthetic sinew Materials that expand and contract in response to some form of stimulus are useful for robotics, where they are used to make "actuators" or artificial muscle fibres, and on smaller scales where they can produce sensors for lab-on-a-chip devices. In the new research, Ray Baughman and colleagues at the University of Texas at Dallas, together with collaborators in Canada, South Korea, Turkey, China and New South Wales in Australia, took a simpler tack. Twisted tendons
Graphene Gives You Infrared Vision in a Contact Lens It sounds like something from a spy thriller movie: putting on a contact lens that gives you infrared vision without the need for a bulky contraption that covers your face. But now, thanks to research at the University of Michigan, such a contact lens is a real possibility. The Michigan researchers turned to the optical capabilities of graphene to create their infrared contact lens. Graphene is capable of detecting the entire infrared spectrum, with visible and ultraviolet light thrown in. "The challenge for the current generation of graphene-based detectors is that their sensitivity is typically very poor," said Zhaohui Zhong, assistant professor at the University of Michigan, in a press release. In research that was published in the journal Nature Nanotechnology ("Graphene photodetectors with ultra-broadband and high responsivity at room temperature"), the Michigan researchers devised a new method for generating the electrical signal.
MIT Researchers Develop Living Material Using E. coli : Biology Mar 24, 2014 04:13 AM EDT Researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology have created a material with the properties of both living and non living things using E.coli bacteria. Their study paves the way for futuristic self-assembling materials that could be used in solar cells and biosensors. Researchers led by Timothy Lu, an assistant professor of electrical engineering and biological engineering, have shown that it is possible to incorporate gold nanoparticles and even quantum dots to create "living materials." These smart materials will be able to only respond to the environment like a living cell but even develop complex networks required for man-made applications. For example, self-healing material could help absorb and conduct electricity in solar cells. "Our idea is to put the living and the nonliving worlds together to make hybrid materials that have living cells in them and are functional," Lu said in a news release. Controlling Bacteria
Dual Carbon batteries: Is this finally the breakthrough we’ve been promised for so long? One of the dirty little secrets of the green automotive industry is that its most defining and important component, the battery, really isn’t very green at all. Modern batteries tend to poop out more quickly than just about any other part of the car, and when they die they must be disposed of carefully to avoid harming the environment. Now, a star-studded Japanese startup called Power Japan Plus (PJP) promises to fix that problem — literally, it promises that this technology will revolutionize the world of battery technology. If its basic claims for the breakthrough are true, that actually seems to be a fair bet; the so-called Ryden Dual Carbon Battery could greatly extend the length of a charge and the overall lifetime of a battery, while greatly reducing cost, charge times, and environmental impact. Maybe the biggest number associated with this battery, though, is zero: a dual-carbon battery experiences zero temperature change during operation.