Better Worlds
Better Worlds brings you:
The Better Worlds Conference, a meeting of new ideas
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Immodest Proposals, a pub-based "town hall" meeting for society's cutting edge.
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A blog that collects ideas to make Earth, and other planets, better places to live.
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YouTube’s ad-free video subscription could arrive before year’s end
This is great news! I’ve been wanting something like this for...
Our daily Shuttle magnificence!
my goodness this is amazing
Tiny Mutation Switches Brain Freeze to Hot Foot
Ice cream lovers and hot tea drinkers with sensitive teeth could one day have a reason to...“Schneider, along with co-founder and "professional tweeter” David...
During the development of the nervous system, neurons and glial cells (nervous system support cells) must travel considerable distances before...
Whales Sleep One-Half Of Their Brain At A Time
Considering the inherent difficulty of sleeping underwater as an air-breather, some...
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) has installed and commissioned the highest peak power laser diode arrays in the world, representing total peak power of 3.2 megawatts (MW).
by John Hasier
Scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory have built a 3.2 MW diode array, the largest such laser power source, or “pump,” of this type ever manufactured. The diode arrays are the first stage of the High-Repetition-Rate Advanced Petawatt Laser System (HAPLS), a 1 Petawatt pulsed laser that can pulse 10 times a second. During the brief 30 femtoseconds of each pulse this laser will output over 50 times the average power consumed by all other devices in the world combined. After initial testing it will be moved to it’s final home in the Extreme Light Infrastructure in Europe.
In addition to being a component in a rad-sounding machine and being a “huge freakin laser,” HAPLS will be much more compact than traditional “flashlamp” pumped high power lasers–like those in use at the National Ignition Facility or most laser manufacturing facilities. The increase in power, repetition rate and decrease in size will allow for more than faster nuclear physics experiments. Next generation high strength, high fatigue metals can be developed via high power laser peening.that is out of reach of all but the largest highest power current generation lasers. Better Worlds is excited by these even bigger lasers and the potential they have to shape the world of tomorrow.
Scientists have developed a highly efficient oxygen-producing electrode for splitting water that has the potential to be scaled up for industrial production of the clean energy fuel, hydrogen. The new technology is based on an inexpensive, specially coated foam material that lets the bubbles of oxygen escape quickly. Unlike other water electrolyzers that use precious metals as catalysts, the electrode is made entirely from two non-precious and abundant metals – nickel and iron.
by Humza Kazmi
Hydrogen gas can be produced through a process called “water splitting,” breaking apart water molecules and freeing up hydrogen from the water. Normally, this process requires electrodes made out of rare elements like iridium or ruthenium, making it difficult to produce on a large scale. However, Dr. Xunyu Lu and Dr. Chuan Zhao of the University of New South Wales have developed a water-splitting method that may replace the costly rare elements with the much more abundant iron and nickel.
Normally these elements wouldn’t be able to efficiently support the reactions necessary for splitting water. But the process that Drs. Lu and Zhao have developed uses tiny holes in the nickel electrode to drastically increase the surface area available for the electrolysis reaction (allowing more hydrogen to be generated) and allows for the hydrogen to flow more efficiently away from the electrode.
Mass production of hydrogen is currently undertaken through using fossil fuels like methane. Having alternative sources for hydrogen production brings us one step closer towards long-term alternative energy solutions.
See the full paper, which is open access for once: http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2015/150317/ncomms7616/full/ncomms7616.html
by Jill Bearup (twitter)
300 million people in the world are colorblind. But Berkeley-based company EnChroma has developed glasses which filter colors in order to enhance their separability for colorblind people, enabling people to see a wider spectrum of colors.
It’s difficult to do justice to people seeing colors for the first time. So here’s the video. We’re off to watch a sunset.
Researchers have shown how to convert waste packing peanuts into high-performance carbon electrodes for rechargeable lithium-ion batteries that outperform conventional graphite electrodes, representing an environmentally friendly approach to reuse the waste.
by Graham Weidman
If you’re like me, you get a fair amount of stuff in the mail. It’s only natural–I can find widgets online that are remarkably inconvenient to find by driving around town. Unfortunately, this also means that I end up with a substantial amount of packing material.
Polystyrene. Packing peanuts. Great at what it does, but cluttering up my garage. On the one hand, I don’t want to just throw it in the garbage. I want to recycle it. On the other, recycling polystyrene foam is remarkably difficult. The recycling centers in my area just don’t take the stuff. Not economical.
Enter today’s article. An economical way of turning packing material into excellent battery terminals–and given the prevalence of batteries today, this should be an strong incentive to apply the technology widely. The recycling centers will have a reason to take this stuff! We might get better batteries than any currently on the market. Frankly, I’m thrilled. The sooner this takes off, the better.
Scientists are helping to reveal the secret to cheaper, super-efficient solar power by studying a family of crystalline materials called hybrid perovskites.
by Graham Weidman
This article illustrates how careful study of the details of power generation within the cell helps improve efficiency, making them more desirable. Earlier this week, we gave you an article on the manufacture of perovskite solar films. Though they’re still behind the cutting edge of silicon-based solar cells, they’ve been making great strides. In this case, scientists have identified mechanisms that improve efficiency. This sort of research gives promise for making perovskites more competitive with Si.