A device produces clean energy through evaporation

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At first glance it may seem like a nice colorful toy, but in reality it is a refined device designed to produce electricity. It is a device developed by researchers at Columbia University, who used very special materials to create an instrument that exploits the humidity present in the air to generate 'clean' electrical energy. The device was made with colored Lego bricks, a sheet of rubber coated with spores, a coil and … Read more

Goodbye to air conditioners: 3D bricks that cool the air are arriving

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Modern science is increasingly concerned with finding solutions for domestic well-being. During the summer seasons the heat can be unbearable, especially in the hottest locations and in the central hours of the day. Many people are therefore led to purchase an air conditioner, i.e. a device that conveys hot air and cools it by reintroducing it into the cold environment and therefore lowering the overall temperature of the environment. From today these systems could be replaced by a very special invention, namely climate bricks made of ... Read more

Unexplained area discovered on the surface of Mars

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Stars and planets are fascinating universes, which every day reveal dark and difficult to explain areas. It happened recently with the discoveries involving the planet Pluto, where a mountain chain was discovered that overturns every scientific thought carried out so far and it also happens today with Mars, a planet that seemed to have been studied in every single portion of it. The Curiosity probe has in fact detected the presence of a very special area in the crater area... Read more

EasyJet, the hydrogen hybrid plane arrives

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Not just electric and hybrid cars: the airline sector also wants to renew itself, and EasyJet wants to lead the way with the project of a hydrogen hybrid plane. In fact, air pollution also comes from airplanes, and the EasyJet company has been trying for many years to reduce CO2 emissions and become more "green." The company recently presented the concept of an aircraft that uses fuel cells to power the engines during hovering. … Read more

Created an artificial silicone heart

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Who among you sleeps on a memory foam, latex mattress? I don't want to know if you like it or not (I do): just know that in the future a similar material could be used to create artificial body parts. A group of researchers at Cornell University have used their new “elastomer foam” to make a pump that looks and functions similar to that of a human heart. The silicone foam… Read more

From 24 frames per second to one thousand billion: femtophotography

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Femtophotography is a field of research that deals with capturing images at very high speed. What is it for? And who knows. To many things. First of all to 'photograph' the light, to study its behaviour. But it can also be used to do amazing things, currently out of reach, such as photographing an image of an object hidden around a corner by reflecting photons off an intermediate surface, onto the object itself, and then back onto the intermediate surface. 'photographic lens. Three years … Read more

6 bets for the future

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The list of technologies under study is very long and is constantly updated: one of the latest lists of future developments that could change the world forever comes from the Institute of Ethics and Emerging Technologies, a research center founded in 2004 by a philosopher, Nick Bostrom, and a bioethicist, James Huges. The list, drawn up with the consultancy of futurologist Gray Scott, presents really interesting elements: here are the "magnificent" 6 technologies that could arrive in the near future. Age reversal… Read more

Graphene prodigies: charged electric cars in 16 seconds, now you can

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If I asked 10 of you readers what in your opinion is the biggest problem that hinders the large-scale diffusion of electric cars, probably 3 of you would blame the oil lobbies (it's a sin to think badly but you're not often wrong) and 7 of you would blame conventional batteries, which take too long to charge. Well, you're all right. Graphene supercapacitors, however, are a more than concrete promise to solve the problem: they are… Read more

All ready for India on Mars

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A few hours before the departure of India's first historic interplanetary mission. After a short delay due to small component problems, the trip to Mars of the vehicle developed by ISRO (Indian Space Research Organisation) will be a reality. It's just the beginning, they say in New Delhi: with the typical enthusiasm of a nation growing at supersonic speed, ISRO has already declared that it wants to send a human mission by 2016, and this would be just the beginning of a long series of stages necessary for preparation. … Read more

V-Tex, here's the microwave fridge

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Who hasn't come home at least once on a hot summer day and discovered that they had all their drinks OUT of the fridge? Forced to wait at least a quarter of an hour to be able to drink them cold, how many of you have asked yourself "why isn't there something like a microwave fridge that instantly cools food?". Very soon the question will be answered: V-Tex is a device being created by a consortium of companies... Read more

The ship laser passes the first test.

It may not be able to cut through a thick sheet of steel any time soon, but the US Navy has demonstrated that its solid laser can incinerate small boats. MLD (Demonstrative Maritime Laser) is a 15 kilowatt beam designed specifically to equip ships: its 'civilian' use could ward off pirate attacks, but it remains a full-blown weapon designed to offend and destroy. Last Thursday MLD passed its first test, annihilating a small boat with a… Read more

Holland drops 5 axles for the motorway of the future

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We often tend to think of innovations in the field of road safety as solutions limited to cars, but a team of Dutch designers makes us understand how the road itself can also play an active role. This gave rise to a series of interesting studies to make driving safer. The Glowing Lines concept takes inspiration from the lines of reflectors that can be found here and there on European motorways, but replaces the latter with a special luminescent paint in … Read more

Tomorrow the Pepsi fat blocker debuts, and I don't feel very well.

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The global diffusion of soft drinks has reached widespread figures: an entire part of the 'Western' world seems to drink more colored concoctions than water. The results are alarming, many research centers on the planet have already brought out the results of different studies, all of which agree in attributing negative effects on the organism. The reason? Carbon dioxide which upsets the stomach. A burst of sugars (about 9 teaspoons per can) or sweeteners (aspartame and acesulfame suspected of being carcinogenic). The dyes. A disaster, in short. And for … Read more

Bovine blood bricks

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I make this premise for all those, including myself, who have turned up their noses at handling such news: the existence of hamburgers is not my fault, and the slaughter processes in the world occur independently of us. We can and must ask for fairer conditions for the breeding and treatment of animals, even those that constitute food, and this is beyond doubt: once this is done, if you are not a vegetarian, a bovine is raised to make steaks. An adult bovine… Read more

Because politics will do without politicians.

In difficult times like these, popular demands persist: in the last 3 and a half years the only positive developments for our country have come from referendums. To the ever greater surprise of politicians and scholars of social flows, political protest movements are organizing themselves and are preparing to be, thanks to the Internet, increasingly structured and 'intelligent'. A typical and important phenomenon in the structure of increasingly present popular movements (from peaceful protest ones to 'revolutionary' ones... Read more

In nanomachine towards the future

It's not the first and it won't be the last. Scientists from the University of Groningen (Holland) and the Empa research center (Switzerland) have created a nanometric transport system equipped with four motor units (translation: a “namomachine”). It's electric, four nanometers long and every half turn of the wheels has to fill up... It works thanks to a scanning tunneling microscope positioned above it, which transmits a tiny electric charge that causes reversible structural changes in the wheels (translation: … Read more

5×1000 to the WWF: give a gift to the future.

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Our planet needs a small overhaul: with an economy increasingly in crisis and an epochal transition from an energy system based on fossil fuels to another (hopefully ever closer) that focuses entirely on renewables, our presence activity is increasingly important to guarantee new generations greater freedom, greater variety of species and less pollution. We can do a lot: an important principle that will be able to keep our ecosystem standing is to... Read more

Oxfam changes Christmas: finally.

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The Christmas holidays are coming and as always the world is divided: I'm not talking about wars and physical or ideological conflicts, I'm referring to the division between those who spend this period looking for more time to spend with their loved ones, and those who take the opportunity to do shopping and grabbing any object, once again, seamlessly. What do we really need? Time passes quickly: a century ago Christmas was completely different (even Santa Claus, ... Read more