Head Blaze

When it’s one of these:

Now if they could only make the box eatable too, maybe as a dessert? While I love good simple effective ideas like this, it will probably have limited acceptance as most people (like me) grab a slice and go at it without a plate. Of course I rarely have leftover pizza too. Good thinking at work here…

Great idea but I wonder what kind of by-product is left over from the process if any? But this is a good start in keeping in check the overwhelming amount of by-products created by modern civilization.

Old tires are hard to bury and dirty to burn, but a New Jersey company has a new solution: microwave them.

The Global Resource Corporation, of Mount Laurel, is expected to cut the ribbon on Monday on a factory outside Chicago that makes giant microwave chambers for converting tires into three kinds of fuel: oil that can serve as a feedstock at an oil refinery, or substitute directly for diesel fuel in some applications; gases that can be burned to make electricity; and a solid material that can be burned in coal plants. Continue Reading »

Now imagine these Siftables as a shared resource. You could pick up a bunch of blocks, request specific programing from a programming kiosk and have just about any computer controlled device in an instant. The possibilities are endless…

This could be a great breakthrough and a real solution to the “dirty” CFL’s (compact fluorescent light bulb).  Even though each CFL has a minute amount of mercury it will more than likely find its way into landfills.  People are too used to throwing away regular light bulbs to be bothered recycling CFL’s.

Article: Great bright hope to end battle of the light bulbs

A lighting revolution is on the way that could end at the flick of a switch the battle between supporters of conventional bulbs and the eco-friendly variety.

These LED's are three times more efficient than CLF's

Cambridge University researchers have developed cheap, light-emitting diode (LED) bulbs that produce brilliant light but use very little electricity. They will cost £2 and last up to 60 years.

Despite being smaller than a penny, they are 12 times more efficient than conventional tungsten bulbs and three times more efficient than the unpopular fluorescent low-energy versions. Continue Reading »

This is my favorite type of invention, observe nature, learn and then build something that imitates the process.  Nature has been at it a lot longer than we have been on the planet and nature is a great teacher if you only slow down a little to watch and learn.

Article: Baby Beetles Get Through Water Efficiently, So Can Small Boats

PITTSBURGH, Pa. — Inspired by the way beetle larvae wiggle to move across water, researchers at the University of Pittsburgh have developed a low-energy and low-maintenance system for moving small robots and boats in water.

The system, which uses electrical pulses in place of paddles, sails and motors, is designed for small boats and devices that monitor the water quality in reservoirs, oceans and other bodies of water. Such devices usually rely on propellers to move about. Continue Reading »

Add a little math to that mirror!

Article: At Drexel, he designs amazing mirrors

By Tom Avril
Inquirer Staff Writer

Mathematician Andrew Hicks was in his Drexel University office, puzzling over some problem he can no longer recall, when colleague Ron Perline walked in with a challenge.

Fresh from his morning bicycle ride from Germantown, Perline was unhappy with the rearview mirror mounted on his handlebars. Its tiny surface was curved, reflecting a wide-angle view of the road behind him, but the image was badly distorted.

Could math provide the path to better reflection? Perline asked.

Indeed it could. Eight years and numerous calculations later, Hicks is now testing a prototype mirror – for a car, not a bike – and he is in talks with a foreign manufacturer. As with the bike mirror, the rounded surface provides a wide field of view – so wide that it eliminates the dreaded, driver-side “blind spot” – yet the subtle mathematics of his design result in little or no distortion. Continue Reading »

Safe drinking water is something we take for granted here in America. But the majority of people on this planet struggle daily to find clean water. This is a great idea!

Here’s an interesting story about a boy who invented a way to protect birds from flying into windows.

Article: Ottawa boy’s invisible invention warns birds about deadly windows

Eighth grader Charlie Sobcov wants to stop birds from dying in collisions with windows, but he doesn’t want to ruin anybody’s view.

For his latest school science fair project he has invented painted, plastic decals that can be placed — discreetly — right in the middle of a window pane.

“This paint is a colour that birds can see but humans can’t,” he said Wednesday on CBC Radio’s All in a Day. “It’s like putting a big stop sign in the middle of the window.” Continue Reading »

I have always believed that everything we need to live and thrive can be found on the earth and I don’t mean just food and shelter.  It just takes someone with the ability to see what is already there to make it happen.  I think we dismiss nature too much in favor of man made technology and ignore simple and effective solutions to problems that have already been solved, by nature.

Some interesting examples:

How Fishy Technology Could Power the Future

Think like a fish not like a bird, say researchers trying to harvest energy from water currents. Their new fish-inspired power generator can work in slow-moving currents where traditional turbines are less effective.

Tidal streams and moving rivers in the United States could generate 140 billion kilowatt-hours per year, or about 3.5 percent of the nation’s electricity demand, according to the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI).

Most of the attempts to tap this potential have employed underwater windmills. These so-called tidal turbines use the force of lift to turn their blades.

“We live in air so we are used to lifting surfaces that support birds, sail boats and airplanes,” said Michael Bernitsas of the University of Michigan.

In water, however, Nature has devised a different strategy. Most natural swimmers — from tiny sperm to giant whales — create vortices (or little whirlpools) that they push off of to propel themselves forward.

RoboClam

The simple razor clam has inspired a new MIT robot that could lead to a “smart” anchor that burrows through the ocean floor to reposition itself and could even reverse, making it easier to recover.

The so-called RoboClam is being developed to explore the performance capabilities of clam-inspired digging, as well as to shed light on the behavior of the real animal.

This could be a real breakthrough to increase solar panel efficiency.  We need more innovations like this to make solar and other alternative energy competitive with oil.

Coating helps solar panels soak up more of the sun

CHICAGO (Reuters) – A new type of reflective coating can make solar panels far more efficient, soaking up nearly all available sunlight from nearly any angle, U.S. researchers said on Monday.

Current solar panels — which convert energy from the sun into electricity — absorb only about two-thirds of available sunlight.

But surfaces treated with a coating developed at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York, can harvest 96.2 percent of sunlight.

“That is a tremendous savings,” Rensselaer’s Shawn-Yu Lin, whose study appears in the journal Optics Letters, said in a telephone interview.