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emergentfutures: Nanowire Forest Splits Water with Sunlight  researchers at University of California, San Diego havedeveloped a quite different approachto mimicking photosynthesis for splitting water molecules by using a 3D branched nanowire array that looks like a forest of trees. According to Deli Wang, professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering, this tree-like structure enables both trees and the nanowire arrays to capture the maximum amount of solar energy. To illustrate what he means, Wang points to satellite imagery in which flat surfaces like oceans or deserts simply reflect the light back and forests remain dark because they are absorbing the light. Full Story: IEEE Spectrum

emergentfutures:

Nanowire Forest Splits Water with Sunlight

 researchers at University of California, San Diego havedeveloped a quite different approachto mimicking photosynthesis for splitting water molecules by using a 3D branched nanowire array that looks like a forest of trees.

According to Deli Wang, professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering, this tree-like structure enables both trees and the nanowire arrays to capture the maximum amount of solar energy. To illustrate what he means, Wang points to satellite imagery in which flat surfaces like oceans or deserts simply reflect the light back and forests remain dark because they are absorbing the light.


Full Story: IEEE Spectrum

Tags green tech

Reblogged from Emergent Futures Tumblelog  Source emergentfutures

Bold Bernace Predictions for 2023: Occupy Wall Street movement will need to prepare for “pain rays” in the future after the tear gas doesn’t work… 8bitfuture: Pentagon demonstrates “Pain Ray” Officially called the ‘Active Denial System’ (ADS), the system uses millimetre wave radio frequency to create a burning sensation in the top 1/64th inch of your skin. The system could be used to move away crowds or advancing enemies, without doing any permanent damage. After 11,000 field tests, the Air Force Research Laboratory says only two people needed medical attention, one of whom was accidentally exposed to the system operating at 100%. Last December I outlined this similar system from Ratheon, able to disrupt breathing using a low-frequency speaker system - that device was only at the patent stage at the time. The ADS demonstrated was mounted on a humvee, and needs 16 hours to warm up before use. In the real world, it is likely to stay switched on all the time to be ready immediately, although that will chew through a lot of gas. Check out a video of the machine in action here (skip to 1:30 for the action).

Bold Bernace Predictions for 2023: Occupy Wall Street movement will need to prepare for “pain rays” in the future after the tear gas doesn’t work…

8bitfuture:

Pentagon demonstrates “Pain Ray”

Officially called the ‘Active Denial System’ (ADS), the system uses millimetre wave radio frequency to create a burning sensation in the top 1/64th inch of your skin.

The system could be used to move away crowds or advancing enemies, without doing any permanent damage. After 11,000 field tests, the Air Force Research Laboratory says only two people needed medical attention, one of whom was accidentally exposed to the system operating at 100%.

Last December I outlined this similar system from Ratheon, able to disrupt breathing using a low-frequency speaker system - that device was only at the patent stage at the time.

The ADS demonstrated was mounted on a humvee, and needs 16 hours to warm up before use. In the real world, it is likely to stay switched on all the time to be ready immediately, although that will chew through a lot of gas.

Check out a video of the machine in action here (skip to 1:30 for the action).

Tags crowd control occupy wallstreet

Reblogged from 8 Bit Future  Source Wired

Wonklife: Reagan's stimulus vs. Obama's austerity

At this point in the Reagan recovery government spending had risen 11.6 percent; this time around it’s actually down by 2.6 percent. So if we had followed the Reagan track, spending would be almost 15 percent higher.

Since government spending on goods and services is about $3 trillion a year,…

Reblogged from Wonklife  Source The New York Times

The 1% suffer too; watch video to listen to quotes of their suffering.  Please don’t cry, perhaps we can reduce the minimum wage, export a few more jobs, reduce a few more pension benefits, cut medicare to those overprivileged seniors, cut student aid already, and try for the mother of god to cut taxes so that the 1% can get back to the good old days… where is the tea party when we need them?

mohandasgandhi:

Wall Street Execs Whine Over Bonus Cuts

A Bloomberg article which discusses the recent cuts in Wall Street bonuses is discussed by Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian. Watch Cenk and Ana discuss some great quotes from Wall Street bankers about how terrible their lives are since their bonuses have been cut.

I know this is a Young Turks video but honestly, I highly recommend watching just for the unbelievable quotes from Wall Street executives. This is the epitome of entitlement.

Tags 1% tea-party wall-street-bonuses

Reblogged from Mohandas Gandhi  Source mohandasgandhi

“People are taking the piss out of you everyday. They butt into your life, take a cheap shot at you and then disappear. They leer at you from tall buildings and make you feel small. They make flippant comments from buses that imply you’re not sexy enough and that all the fun is happening somewhere else. They are on TV making your girlfriend feel inadequate. They have access to the most sophisticated technology the world has ever seen and they bully you with it. They are ‘The Advertisers’ and they are laughing at you.”

Banksy On Advertising (via felixsalmon)

Capitalist Bullies that ruin our day… (I exempt from this critique the women on ABC’s Revenge who are smoking hot :-)

Reblogged from Felix  Source designtaxi.com

Cost of more cars>>>MIT: China's pollution costs $112B/annual health care

Info below talks on generalized pollution but a significant portion obviously comes from the tremendous surge in car ownership:

climateadaptation:

“China’s unprecedented growth is carrying a steadily steeper price tag as its air pollution hikes the nation’s health care costs, finds a new study by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Although China has made substantial progress in reducing its air pollution, MIT researchers say its economic impact has jumped from $22 billion in 1975 to $112 billion in 2005. The costs result from both lost labor and the increased need for health care because ozone and particulates in air can cause respiratory and cardiovascular diseases.

“The results clearly indicate that ozone and particulate matter have substantially impacted the Chinese economy over the past 30 years,” Noelle Selin, an assistant MIT professor of engineering systems and atmospheric chemistry, said in announcing the findings that appear in the February edition of the journal Global Environmental Change.

The study, by researchers at the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change, said pollution’s economic impact has grown, because population growth increased the number of people exposed to it and higher incomes raised the costs associated with lost productivity.”

Read the rest at USA Today

Reblogged from Emergent Futures Tumblelog  Source climateadaptation

mohandasgandhi:

Noam Chomsky on Austerity, Education & Healthcare

Pay special attention to what Noam says about California’s current public education crisis and his comments about the attempts to privatize schools like Berkeley and UCLA.

What he says at the end is critical to understand what we’re currently seeing in politics, what the impacts of driving social spending and public funding out of government policy are, and why it matters:

Social security is based upon the principle of solidarity. You’re supposed to care if the disabled widow across town has enough food to eat and that has to be driven out of people’s heads. You’re supposed to be concerned just about yourself - same defect in the public education system. Look, I don’t have kids in school anymore, so if I follow the rules, I’m not supposed to care if there’s public education - I don’t want to pay taxes for public education. But if you’re infected with this disease of solidarity, you care if the kid across the street can go to school. Now, that’s got to be driven out of people’s heads - same reason for the attack on unions. So, you get these massive attacks and I think that’s what’s happening to the public education system.

Tags solidarity education privatizing

Reblogged from Mohandas Gandhi  Source mohandasgandhi