Happy Darwin Day everyone! Today is Darwin’s birthday and in honor of him, I thought I’d post this article about Liquid Glass, which could possibly be the coolest nanotech material I’ve seen in some time. I think it’s so cool mainly because of its versatility and the fact that it’s already in use in Germany, the UK and Turkey.
Why am I talking about nanotech on Darwin’s birthday? If you think about it, without evolution, we wouldn’t be able to manipulate our world so deftly and with such finesse. About 195,000 years ago homo sapiens first appeared in the fossil record. We started leaving Africa about 70,000 years ago, and migrated as far as the Americas 14,500 years ago.
A mere 10,000 years ago, we were mostly hunter-gatherers in nomadic groups. The first proto-states were developed only 6,000 years ago. Think of that! Look how far we’ve come in such a short time!
Think of how we lived just 100 years ago in 1910.
By 1910 many suburban homes were wired up with power and new electronic gadgets.
Vacuum cleaners and washing machines had just become commercially available, though still expensive for middle class folks
The telephone was new, and millions of American homes were connected by manual switchboard
People relied on the paper for their news, but radio technology was in its infancy
The age of the airship was in full swing. Only 7 years previously, the Wright brothers had flown at Kitty Hawk
Henry Ford introduced the Model T 2 years before and sold about 10,000 of them this year
Advances in the use of gases meant the first electric refrigerators and air conditioning units.
So you’re a creationist or a fundamentalist, whatever. You know what? That’s fine. I don’t really care what you believe for yourself. Personally I don’t think you should be allowed to raise your kids in such a way as I think it’s cruel, but whatever. That’s just me being silly, thinking kids should have a fighting chance by teaching them what is real and how best to get along in the world, not teaching them that there was a talking snake and 2 naked people in a garden that screwed everything up for everybody. Oh, and a man died and came back to life and then flew to heaven and that’s why the kid drinks a sip of wine and eats a cracker every sunday. But oh yeah, Santa Claus was just a story his parents told him to keep him in line. Yeah, makes perfect sense.
Anyhoo… back to my issue. If you’re a creationist and/or fundamentalist, basically you believe the bible is the true and literal word of god, right? You believe your god created the world in 6 days and rested on the 7th. And if you’re a muslim, you believe whatever the quran says. You think evolution is nonsense. Hey, as long as you keep this to yourself too, I don’t give a damn.
But, if you believe your bible is so perfect and science is so flawed, then you have no need of science. So. After you finish reading this article, turn off the computer and give it to your neighbor. No more electronics. No cell phone, no microwave, no electric light. All of that is here because people… normal everyday people… wanted to make things better. According to you, god made everything perfect and the bible is the be all, end all of knowledge. Stop being a hypocrite and get back to trying to be like christ-like. Read the rest of this entry »
I saw this commercial for the PrayerMAX 5000 awhile ago on Pharyngula, but I was busy and never actually watched it. Silly me! This is awesome! I need two of these things!
This is the neatest idea on so many levels. So you need to unwind and play a game. You’re tired of windows solitaire. How about playing a game that could contribute to curing a disease? How about helping science with your big awesome brain!?
You can go here to read about the science behind the “game”.
So basically, in a really simple nutshell, you’re using your intuitive awesome brain to do something that would take computers a huge amount of time and expense to do.
Proteins are part of lots of diseases, so understanding how they fold on themselves is very important. Read the rest of this entry »
In a giant leap for clean energy, MIT professor Daniel Nocera and his team, have developed a simple method to split water molecules and produce oxygen gas. This paves the way for large scale use of solar power.
Getting energy from the sun isn’t the hard part, it seems. It’s storing that energy that has been a problem.
These guys at MIT were inspired by how plants perform photosynthesis. Their revolutionary method uses abundant, non-toxic natural materials.
I won’t get into all the details, but I just wanted to share it with you because it seems pretty important and wonderful.
Here’s a link to MIT where they have a video of Daniel Nocera describing the new process and a lot more details.
This is just the beginning though. It’s still not really cost effective, but other scientists will be able to run with it and we’ll see where it all leads us in the near future.
Nocera hopes that within 10 years, we’ll be able to power our homes in daylight through photovoltaic cells, while using excess solar energy to produce hydrogen and oxygen to power our own household fuel cell.
Of course, the power companies will not like this. But hopefully it will all happen anyway.
Photograph of the electronic eye camera after integration with a transparent hemispherical cap and a simple, single component imaging lens. - Photo by John Rogers
The University of Illinois and Northwestern University have developed an “eye” camera. It combines stretchable optoelectronics and the design is inspired by nature. The layout is based on the human eye, so this camera is the next step towards an artificial retina, a la The Terminator. Read the rest of this entry »
How about a self contained living river ecosystem in your living room? I love the idea of combining art into something practical, useful and also great for the environment, so this really fits the bill. Read the rest of this entry »
Happy Darwin Day everyone! Today is Darwin’s birthday and in honor of him, I thought I’d post this article about Liquid Glass, which could possibly be the coolest nanotech material I’ve seen in some time. I think it’s so cool mainly because of its versatility and the fact that it’s already in use in Germany, the UK and Turkey.
