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Graph of wind power capacity in the USA from 1981 – 2005 (from 10 Megawatts to 9,149 megawatts).
From the American Wind Energy Association:
AWEA expects the U.S. to pass the 15,000 MW mark by the end of 2007 and can have 25,000 MW installed by the end of 2010, with the proper policies in place. At this growth rate, the U.S. could have 100,000 MW installed by 2020, which would provide the nation with approximately 6% of its future power needs, about as much as hydropower provides today.
Related: Wind Power Technology Breakthrough – GE’s Edison Desk Blog – Solar Tower Power Generation
‘Nanocar’ with buckyball wheels paves way for other molecular machines
The nanocar consists of a chassis and axles made of well-defined organic groups with pivoting suspension and freely rotating axles. The wheels are buckyballs, spheres of pure carbon containing 60 atoms apiece. The entire car measures just 3-4 nanometers across, making it slightly wider than a strand of DNA. A human hair, by comparison, is about 80,000 nanometers in diameter.
After some more thought, I realized that I could just use my spare (working) computer as the basis of the cat feeder. It’s also my home’s Subversion source control server – a rare mix of server workloads indeed! It has a CD Rom drive, so I could just use software to open and close it.
And water for the cat too:
When the cats drink the water level down a bit, the jug can once again equalize its air pressure, and lets more water out.
Don’t miss the video – Related: Engineering at Home
Researchers harness the power of bacteria by Renee Meiller
Through machinery such as plants, photosynthetic bacteria harvest solar energy. They also make products to power microbial fuel cells. “In many ways, this is the best of both worlds — generating electricity from a ‘free’ energy source like sunlight and removing wastes at the same time,” says Donohue. “The trick is to bring ideas from different disciplines to develop biorefineries and fuel cells that take advantage of the capabilities of photosynthetic bacteria.”
The benefit of using photosynthetic bacteria, he says, is that solar-powered microbial fuel cells can generate additional electricity when sunlight is available.
Giant nests perplex experts (site broke link so I removed it):
Super-size that nest!, July 21st:
Ray fears some of these nests may not even reach maximum size until late July or August.
One other finding has intrigued Ray and other researchers: the presence of satellite nests in close proximity to the large nest.
R&D Magazine’s 2006 Innovator of the Year
A self-taught physicist, with more than 150 patents, Kamen is obviously knowledgeable about what works in the world of science and technology.
Kamen’s latest endeavors involve bringing clean drinking water and cheap electricity to those who don’t have access to either. More than a billion people, or nearly 20% of the world’s population don’t have access to clean drinking water. And even more, 1.6 billion or about one out of every four people on this planet don’t have electricity. Continuing his emphasis on healthcare, Kamen points out that with clean water, you can eliminate more than 75% of those people’s health problems and diseases.
Prevoius post on Kamen’s work with electricity and drinking water for all. Kamen also founded FIRST (see previous post: 2006 FIRST Robotics Competition Regional Events).
(more…)
Photo: Claire Gmachl, associate professor of electrical engineering at Princeton, the MIRTHE center director.
NSF Awards $75.3 Million for Five New Engineering Research Centers including the Mid-Infrared Technologies for Health and the Environment (MIRTHE):
Today more and more locations are becoming viable for world class research and development. Today the following have significant ability: USA, Europe (many countries), Japan, Canada, China, Brazil, Singapore, Israel, India, Korea and Australia (I am sure I have missed some this is just what come to mind as I type this post) and many more are moving in that direction.
The continued increase of viable locations for significant amounts of cutting edge research and development has huge consequences, in many areas. If paths to research and development are blocked in one location (by law, regulation, choice, lack of capital, threat of significant damage to the career of those who would choose such a course…) other locations will step in. In some ways this will be good (see below for an explanation of why this might be so). Promising new ideas will not be stifled due to one roadblock.
But risks of problems will also increase. For example, there are plenty of reasons to want to go carefully in the way of genetically engineered crops. But those seeking a more conservative approach are going to be challenged: countries that are acting conservatively will see other countries jump in, I believe. And even if this didn’t happen significantly in the area of genetically engineered crops, I still believe it will create challenges. The ability to go elsewhere will make those seeking to put constraints in place in a more difficult position than 50 years ago when the options were much more limited (It might be possible to stop significant research just by getting a handful of countries to agree).
Debates of what restrictions to put on science and technology research and development will be a continuing and increasing area of conflict. And the solutions will not be easy. Hopefully we will develop a system of diplomacy that works, but that is much easier said than done. And the United States will have to learn they do not have the power to dictate terms to others. This won’t be an easy thing to accept for many in America. The USA will still have a great deal of influence, due mainly to economic power but that influence is only the ability to influence others and that ability will decline if diplomacy is not improved. Diplomacy may not seem to be a science and engineering area but it is going to be increasingly be a major factor in the progress of science and engineering. (more…)
Voyager 1 Sails Past 100 AU by A.J.S. Rayl:
The Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Center for Initiatives in Pre-College Education (CIPCE):
A bold declaration and vision which, thankfully, they back up with action.
They offer several Interactive MultiMedia downloads form their site. We have added a directory of sites that offer k-12 resources (ciriculum, tools, etc. for teachers) and interesting online and offline resources for sudents: science education sites as part of our science links directory.
Robotics for k-12 see: (more…)
Robot team-mates tap into each others’ talents by Tom Simonite
The number of cool research projects underway today is amazing.
Image: Tapping into another robot’s vision system could help a bot move a block around (from Robert Lundh)
NSF surveyed Science and Engineering graduates and provide some not too surprising results in: What Do People Do After Earning an S&E.
Most graduates use the science and engineering knowledge (even if they went on to get unrelated post-graduate degrees in say business, law or no post graduate degree). It seems approximately 20% report having managerial positions currently (excepting recent graduates who are less likely to be managers).
About half of S&E bachelor’s degree recipients go on to earn other degrees. However, fewer than one in five of all S&E bachelor’s recipients go on to earn advanced degrees in science and engineering.
Frankly I find this information less interesting than: the continuing high pay of engineering graduates and the fact that the top undergraduate degree for S&P 500 CEOs is Engineering. It would be interesting to see salary rates (with lifetime earnings), unemployment rates and career satisfaction by undergraduate degree (compared to other undergraduate degrees) throughout their careers (NSF’s Science and Engineering Indicators – Workforce does include very interesting information along these lines).
Why a spider hanging from a thread does not rotate
The amazing properties of spider’s thread have been known for several years: its ductility, strength and hardness surpass those of the most complex synthetics fibers
See more blog posts on life science, biology, etc. and more posts of interest to students and everyone interesting in learning about science.
India’s faltering education system by Kaushik Basu, Professor of economics, Cornell University
The Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, comes in somewhere in the top 400 and IIT, Kharagpur, makes an appearance after that.
Read more about the best universities in the world.
Outsourcing of Indian Education by Pratap Bhanu Mehta
The Challenges for India’s Education System by Marie Lall
Extensive LA Times series on Altered Oceans: the Crisis at Sea by Kenneth R. Weiss and Usha Lee McFarling. Excellent.
Part 1 (of 5): A Primeval Tide of Toxins “Runoff from modern life is feeding an explosion of primitive organisms. This ‘rise of slime,’ as one scientist calls it, is killing larger species and sickening people”
Part 4: Plague of Plastic Chokes the Seas:
This is known as the Eastern Garbage Patch, part of a system of currents called the North Pacific subtropical gyre. Located halfway between San Francisco and Hawaii, the garbage patch is an area of slack winds and sluggish currents where flotsam collects from around the Pacific
…
Nearly 90% of floating marine litter is plastic — supple, durable materials such as polyethylene and polypropylene, Styrofoam, nylon and saran.
About four-fifths of marine trash comes from land, swept by wind or washed by rain off highways and city streets, down streams and rivers, and out to sea.
I have been unable to find a decent photo of this garbage patch – please post a comment if you know of one.
Shanghai’s Jiao Tong University produces a ranking of the top universities annually (since 2003). The methodology used focuses on research (publications) and faculty quality (Fields and Nobel awards and citations). While this seems a very simplistic ranking it still provides some interesting data: highlights from the 2006 rankings of Top 500 Universities worldwide include:
Country representation in the top schools:
| location | Top 101 | % of World Population |
% of World GDP | % of top 500 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| USA | 54 | 4.6% | 28.4% | 33.4% |
| United Kingdom | 10 | 0.9 | 5.1 | 8.6 |
| Japan | 6 | 2.0 | 11.2 | 6.4 |
| Canada | 4 | 0.5 | 2.4 | 8.0 |
| The rest of Europe | 18 | 4.4 | ||
| Australia | 2 | 0.3 | 1.5 | 3.2 |
| Israel | 1 | 0.1 | 0.3 | 1.4 |
Update: see our post on 2007 best research universities results
Top 10 schools:
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