Articles

54% Of Spain’s Electricity Generation In April From Renewables

54% Of Spain’s Electricity Generation In April From Renewables

Spanish Electricity generation from renewables in April set a new record, beating March’s previous record. PV Magazine notes renewables accounted for 54% of the country’s electricity generation in April, outpacing last month’s total of 51.8%. Spanish hydropower made up 25% of April’s overall electricity generation. Meanwhile, wind power was second with 22%. Solar...
Applied Sciences » Energy
Danielle Trofe's Hourglass LED Lamps Use the Kinetic Power of Sand to Produce Light

Danielle Trofe's Hourglass LED Lamps Use the Kinetic Power of Sand to Produce Light

After the debut of her Live Screen hydroponic garden during NY Design Week 2012, Brooklyn-based designer Danielle Trofe is returning this year with a new series of off-the-grid LED lighting fixtures that are illuminated using the power of falling sand. Based on the shape of the hourglass, the new lamps need to be flipped to continue working and require the user’s involvement to stimulate...
Natural Sciences » Materials Science
This Crawling Inchworm Robot Can Be Printed Out and Folds Itself

This Crawling Inchworm Robot Can Be Printed Out and Folds Itself

Building robots is difficult, expensive work. Wouldn’t it be great if robots could just somehow build themselves? We’ve seen robots that can be printed and robots that can be folded, but this little guy manages to do both of those things all by himself. Self-folding happens thanks to shape memory polymers that contract when heated. By printing these polymers on one side of a hinged...
Applied Sciences » Robotics
Tiny robots in the eye may save patients' sight

Tiny robots in the eye may save patients' sight

Kirby Pucket and the Minnesota Twins won two «World Series». One morning in 1996 Pucket awoke without sight in his left eye; he was diagnosed with a retinal vein occlusion from glaucoma. His career in baseball was over. Glaucoma is only one of several diseases that can decrease the oxygen supply to the retina: Like every tissue of our body the retina needs oxygen. An insufficient...
Life Sciences » Biotechnology
Aptima Develops Sense-making System for Robots Inspired by Neuroscience

Aptima Develops Sense-making System for Robots Inspired by Neuroscience

Cognitive Patterns from Aptima, Inc. on Vimeo. Robots can be ideal in situations where humans are not, like entering a radioactive facility, or disposing of explosive ordinance. But even so, these mobile machines still require considerable human oversight as they lack the intelligence to respond to the unexpected on their own. If robots are to become more autonomous and useful, how can they...
Applied Sciences » Robotics
New microbatteries combine the advantages of lithium-ion batteries and supercapacitors

New microbatteries combine the advantages of lithium-ion batteries and supercapacitors

Though they be but little, they are fierce. The most powerful batteries on the planet are only a few millimeters in size, yet they pack such a punch that a driver could use a cellphone powered by these batteries to jump-start a dead car battery – and then recharge the phone in the blink of an eye. Developed by researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the new...
Applied Sciences » Energy
Controlling robots with your thoughts

Controlling robots with your thoughts

"I use the movements of my eyes, eyebrows and other parts of my face", he says. "With my eyebrows I can select which of the robot's joints I want to move" smiles Angel, who is a Master's student at NTNU. Facial grimaces generate major electrical activity (EEG signals) across our heads, and the same happens when Angel concentrates on a symbol, such as a flashing light,...
Applied Sciences » Robotics
Cheetah-Cub Quadruped Robot Learns to Walk, Trot Using Gait Patterns from Real Animal

Cheetah-Cub Quadruped Robot Learns to Walk, Trot Using Gait Patterns from Real Animal

development of several exciting new projects based on Cheetahs. One such robot is Cheetah-Cub, a compliant quadruped developed at the Biorobotics lab at the EPFL, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne. To put Cheetah-Cub in motion, the EPFL group teamed up with researchers from the Italian Institute of Technology (IIT), who have recently managed to transfer horse-like locomotion...
Applied Sciences » Robotics
An electronic nose can tell pears and apples apart

An electronic nose can tell pears and apples apart

Swedish and Spanish engineers have created a system of sensors that detects fruit odours more effectively than the human sense of smell. For now, the device can distinguish between the odorous compounds emitted by pears and apples. Researchers from the Polytechnic University of Valencia (UPV, Spain) and the University of Gävle (Sweden) have created an electronic nose with 32 sensors that can...
Applied Sciences » Computer Science
Epilepsy Cured in Mice Using Brain Cells

Epilepsy Cured in Mice Using Brain Cells

Epilepsy that does not respond to drugs can be halted in adult mice by transplanting a specific type of cell into the brain, UC San Francisco researchers have discovered, raising hope that a similar treatment might work in severe forms of human epilepsy. UCSF scientists controlled seizures in epileptic mice with a one-time transplantation of medial ganglionic eminence (MGE) cells, which inhibit...
Life Sciences » Biotechnology
Solar discovery sets new record for low-grade silicon

Solar discovery sets new record for low-grade silicon

Solar engineers from UNSW have developed an innovative method to dramatically improve the quality of low-grade silicon, promising to significantly improve electrical efficiency and reduce the cost of solar panels. The UNSW team has discovered a mechanism to control hydrogen atoms so they can better correct deficiencies in silicon – by far the most expensive component used in the making of...
Applied Sciences » Energy
Making solar cells with a kitchen microwave

Making solar cells with a kitchen microwave

University of Utah metallurgists used an old microwave oven to produce a nanocrystal semiconductor rapidly using cheap, abundant and less toxic metals than other semiconductors. They hope it will be used for more efficient photovoltaic solar cells and LED lights, biological sensors and systems to convert waste heat to electricity. Using microwaves “is a fast way to make these particles that...
Applied Sciences » Energy
New system could put dead seaweed to use as a source of power

New system could put dead seaweed to use as a source of power

When it’s alive and in the ocean, seaweed serves as a habitat, spawning ground and food source for marine life. Once it gets washed ashore, however, it pretty much just rots. Typically, along beaches in tourist areas, that dead seaweed is simply gathered and taken to a landfill. Now, however, researchers from Spain’s University of Alicante have conceived of a new seaweed-removal...
Applied Sciences » Energy
Terrafugia Shares TF-X Vision

Terrafugia Shares TF-X Vision

Terrafugia Inc., the developer of the Transition® street-legal airplane, announced its vision for the future of personal transportation.  Building on its experience with the Transition® program, Terrafugia has begun feasibility studies of a four-seat, vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) plug-in hybrid-electric flying car, the TF-X™.  Incorporating the state-of-the-art...
Applied Sciences » Transportation