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Archive for the ‘sustainability’ category: Page 522

Oct 13, 2018

Recycling in Space — Design Challenge

Posted by in categories: space, sustainability

PDF €” https://www.nasa.gov/pdf/396719main_WLMR_Educator_Guide.pdf

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Oct 12, 2018

Air Pollution Could Reduce Your Intelligence

Posted by in categories: neuroscience, sustainability

Air pollution could reduce your intelligence and mental capacity.

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Oct 12, 2018

The mind-blowing world of tomorrow’s smart materials

Posted by in categories: business, engineering, sustainability

For businesses that want to maintain or increase their bottom line, this means re-engineering the fundamentals of their supply chain by developing or adopting new material solutions that achieve a lot more with a lot less.

“The smart companies, manufacturers and brands are the ones who are starting to invest in sustainable material innovation,” says Caroline Till, co-author of Radical Matter: Rethinking Materials for a Sustainable Future, adding, “There’s a thirst from consumers for this.” It’s clear that tomorrow’s leaders will be those who are brave enough to invest in this research today.

For The Future Laboratory’s new Material Far Futures report, we’ve compiled the most transformative case studies in material innovation into the 10 paradigms that we believe will disrupt industry in the coming decades, each with original visualisations from Studio Brasch. From fabrics that generate power through motion and new forms of kinetic architecture to bio-engineering’s impact on luxury fashion, the materials of tomorrow will be smarter, stronger, more dynamic and, crucially, less ecologically damaging.

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Oct 7, 2018

‘Sea sludge’ could solve current problems with biofuels

Posted by in categories: futurism, sustainability

Strains of algae and fungi that produce their own oil could cut costs and increase productivity for biofuels of the future.

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Oct 7, 2018

Connecticut receives $30 million for water-related projects

Posted by in category: sustainability

Connecticut receives $30 million in federal funding to improve water infrastructure, including drinking water and municipal sewage projects.

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Oct 6, 2018

Can supplementation with NMN Increase Longevity?

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, life extension, sustainability

Recently, we have shown that by administering the NAD+ precursor NMN (Nicotinamide Mononucleotide)in normal drinking water to older mice, NAD+ levels were restored to those normally associated with younger healthy animals. By administering NMN to mice for just one week, our lab demonstrated a robust correction in age-associated metabolic dysfunction and restored muscle mitochondrial function in old mice to levels seen in younger control mice (Gomes et al. 2013).

https://www.lifespan.io/campaigns/can-nmn-increase-longevity…019dfcda6c

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Oct 5, 2018

Company that sucks CO2 from air announces a new methane-producing plant

Posted by in category: sustainability

Company says net negative emissions need to start now to limit global warming.

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Oct 4, 2018

A rock used as a doorstop for the past 30 years turns out to be a meteorite valued at $100K

Posted by in categories: food, sustainability

“It’s the most valuable specimen I have ever held in my life, monetarily and scientifically,” Sibescu said.

For double verification, a slice of it was sent to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC, which validated it was in fact a meteorite, according to the press release.

Continue reading “A rock used as a doorstop for the past 30 years turns out to be a meteorite valued at $100K” »

Oct 4, 2018

Mechanical engineers develop ways to improve windfarm productivity

Posted by in categories: energy, sustainability

You’ve probably seen them, perhaps on long roadtrips: wind turbines with enormous, hypnotic rolling blades, harnessing the clean power of wind for conversion into electric energy. What you may not know is that for the explosion in the number of wind turbines in use as we embrace cleaner sources of energy, these wind farms are quite possibly not as productive as they could be.

“We’ve been designing turbines for use by themselves, but we almost never use them by themselves anymore,” said UC Santa Barbara mechanical engineering professor Paolo Luzzatto-Fegiz, whose specialty lies in fluid mechanics. Historically, he said, were used individually or in small groups, but as the world moves toward greener technologies, they are now found in groups of hundreds or thousands.

The problem with these large installations is that each machine, which has been designed to extract as much energy as possible from oncoming , may not “play well” with the others, Luzzatto-Fegiz explained. Depending on how the turbines are situated relative to each other and to the prevailing wind, those not directly in the path of the wind could be left to extract energy from significantly depleted airflow.

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Oct 4, 2018

Flowing salt water over this super-hydrophobic surface can generate electricity

Posted by in categories: energy, engineering, sustainability

Engineers at the University of California San Diego have developed a super-hydrophobic surface that can be used to generate electrical voltage. When salt water flows over this specially patterned surface, it can produce at least 50 millivolts. The proof-of-concept work could lead to the development of new power sources for lab-on-a-chip platforms and other microfluidics devices. It could someday be extended to energy harvesting methods in water desalination plants, researchers said.

A team of researchers led by Prab Bandaru, a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering, and first author Bei Fan, a graduate student in Bandaru’s research group, published their work in the Oct. 3 issue of Nature Communications.

The main idea behind this work is to create electrical by moving ions over a charged . And the faster you can move these ions, the more voltage you can generate, explained Bandaru.

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