Nov 30 2008
Invention Briefs 11-30-2008
- Plumbing the oceans – “This has the potential to become the biggest source of renewable energy in the world,” says Robert Cohen, who headed the US federal ocean thermal energy programme in the early 1970s.
- A superhard substance that is more slippery than Teflon could protect mechanical parts from wear and tear, and boost energy efficiency by reducing friction.
- Some musical shake, rattle and roll has led Belgian physicists to develop a new kind of levitation. It only works for tiny drops of liquid, but could provide a new way to handle biological or forensic samples without contaminating them.
- The University of Wisconsin-Madison and a Wausau, Wis., company have come up with a 37-inch, bullet and bomb-proof Humvee tire based on a polymeric web so cool looking there’s no need for hub caps.
- Researchers at Ohio State University have accidentally discovered a new solar cell material capable of absorbing all of the sun’s visible light energy.
- Fishermen in the village of Maruata, which is located on the Mexican Pacific coast 18 degrees north of the equator, have no electricity. But for the past 16 years they have been able to store their fish on ice: Seven ice makers, powered by nothing but the scorching sun, churn out a half ton of ice every day.
- Buckypapers outrun carbon nanotubes as they combine nano and textile technologies.
- A Californian company is developing a new technique for recycling carbon dioxide, or CO2, and turning it back into fuel.
- Cool Earth Solar’s design is unique in the solar energy world. The company uses an inflatable plastic thin-film balloon (solar concentrator) that, upon inflation, focuses sunlight onto a photovoltaic cell held at its focal point. The design produces 400 times the electricity that a solar cell would create without the company’s concentrator.
- The device, called the Glove and invented by two Stanford biologists, is used by the San Francisco 49ers during games and at practice for players’ health. But its applications are far broader: from treating stroke and heart attack victims to allowing soldiers to remain in the field longer under intense heat.
