Bitcoin may have made some people rich, but it also consumed a lot of energy and produced a lot of emissions in the process.
Why does electricity hum — and why is it a B flat in the US, and a G in Europe?
Who knew sound and current can intertwine so much?
Germany produced 85% of its electricity demand from renewable energy
Germany took the lead in renewable energy for one day.
Macrophages conduct electricity through the heart to keep it beating properly
Wired.
The combined capacity of the renewable energy sector overtakes that of coal
No more black lung.
We’ll soon be able to hack our nerves into controlling diseases
The new method could treat a wide range of diseases, from diabetes to arthritis.
Origami battery that runs on a few drops of water could revolutionize biosensors
This disposable battery runs on bacteria and folds like an origami ninja star. Sold!
Georgetown University team found you can literally zap creativity into your brain
Electrically stimulating the frontopolar cortex can enhance creativity, a new study from Georgetown University found.
After 115 years of history, Scotland closes its very last coal-fired plant
The largest and last coal-fired plant in operation in Scotland was officially shut down, marking an end to an 115-years-long history of burning coal in the country.
This is how one French power plant produces electricity using cheese
The town of Albertville in southeastern France has begun using cheese to generate electricity. Their power plant, build in the Savoie region, uses the byproduct of the local Beaufort cheeses as the base for its biogas power generation system.
This electric generator is only a few atoms thin
Researchers from Columbia Engineering and the Georgia Institute of Technology report the first experimental proof of piezoelectricity and the piezotronic effect in an atomically thin material, molybdenum disulfide (MoS2). This makes it the thinnest electrical generator in the world. The resulting generator is optically transparent, extremely light weight, as well as very bendable and stretchable. In the future, such generators could be used to power extremely tiny devices harnessing energy from the environment, be them remote sensors or nanotech that travels through your bloodstream.
Advances in magnet technology could bring cheaper, modular fusion reactors from sci-fi to sci-reality in less than a decade
Advances in magnet technology have allowed MIT scientists to design a cheaper, more compact, modular and highly efficient fusion reactor that is efficient enough to use commercially. The era of clean, practically inexhaustible energy may be upon us in as little as a decade, scientists report.
Dutch Company Harvests Electricity From Living Plants, Powering Street Lights, Cell Phones and Wi-fi
Forget potato clocks – this is the real deal. Plant-e, a start-up company in the Netherlands created promising new technology which harvest electricity from plants. So far this month, more than 300 LED lights were illuminated by the Dutch company, in a promising proof-of-concept. They also demonstrated that they could power up cell phones and Wi-Fis. Generating electricity from thin air
Electric Mind Control: How the Electric Eel Dominates its Prey
The Electric Eel, a scaleless fish from the Amazon possesses an electroshock system very similar to a Taser. Not only can it stun its prey with the shock, but it can also make it twitch involuntarily, revealing its position. The electric eel is able to generate powerful electric shocks of up to 650 volts, which it uses not only for attack and
Thin metasurface absorbs sound near perfectly, while producing electricity at the same time
Researchers at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology have created a thin metamaterial surface that is capable of absorbing nearly all of the acoustic energy (sound). Unlike conventional sound absorbing material that is sometimes only effective when meters thick, the metasurface is deeply “subwavelength” and therefore much thinner. There’s a catch though: the system has been demonstrated for near perfect sound absorption
People prefer getting an electric shock than being left alone with their thoughts
Here’s a weird study. A group of psychologists at University of Virginia introduced men and women alone in a room for fifteen minutes with nothing to distract them. No TV, no phone, no internet, no books, nothing but their thoughts… and a zapping device that sent a mild electric shock. Conclusion: most people would rather kill their time receiving electrical shocks
Power lines may be absolutely terryfing animals and disrupt herding
High voltage power lines aren’t quite the safest places to be around, especially if you’re a large animal or bird and touch two different conductors, thus creating a voltage difference which kills on the spot. Apparently, though, not too many animals wonder near power lines. Roads are known animal traffic disruptors, but even power lines stretched across isolated portions where
UK funds new cutting-edge science facilities, but forgets it needs to pay the electricity bill
The House of Lords Science and Technology Committee has recently issued a report that laments the embarrassing lack of efficient planning and strategy of science funding in the UK. Namely, the report speaks primarily of the seemingly lack of communication between the people who write the funding projects for infrastructure and those who write the funding for operation costs. For
Stunning light circles over military helicopters in Afghanistan [PICS]
Your first impression after seeing one or more of the photos featured in this piece might be that these are ‘shopped, painted or feature an astronomical event of some kind. Your assumptions couldn’t be farther from the truth, and believe it or not these beautiful dancing lights over the helicopters’ rotor blades were captured in real time by photographers. This
How cells and cell fragments move in opposite directions in response to electric field
Researchers at University of California, Davis have shown for the first time how whole cells and fragments orient and move in response to electrical stimuli like an electric field. Surprisingly enough, their results show that whole and fragments move in opposite directions, despite being governed by the same electric field. The findings help better our understanding of how the human body
