#Wireless Charger Powers Electric car In Drive or Park Today, charging an electric car requires a plug and an outlet.
But in the future, charging an electric vehicle may require nothing more than driving and parking. Researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Wind energy and Energy system Technology IWES in Kassel, Germany, have developed a wireless charger system that not only recharges a battery but also feeds excess energy back into the electrical grid.
The system involves two coils: one built into the road, parking space or garage and the other fitted to the underside of electric car.
With this system in place, energy can be transmitted without a plug and entirely through the air or as researchers explain in more depth, hrough a time-varying magnetic field.
The distance between the car coils and road coils can be up to 20 centimeters (7. 8 inches) for the technology to work,
but the closer the two coils are to one another, the more efficiently the energy is transferred, according to researchers. ven with an air gap of 20 centimeters,
we achieve an efficiency of between 93 and 95 percent and do so across the entire power range, from 400 watts to 3. 6 kilowatts,
René Marklein, project manager at Fraunhofer IWES, said in a press release. omparable systems achieve that kind of efficiency only over shorter distances,
which limits their usefulness for cars with larger ground clearance. The system aims to provide several options to EV owners,
rather than limiting their means for a recharge. It permits inductive charging, but also enables a one-phase
and three-phase power connection so drivers can also use normal power outlets and charging stations,
Scientists in the UK, for example, are developing electric highways to charge electric cars. However, unlike other options, this coil system from Fraunhofer Institute can also discharge the electricity stored in a vehicle battery
and feed back into the grid to offset power surges. This technology is particularly cost-effective,
since the team deliberately selected standard components already available on the mass market, as noted by Marco Jung, deputy head of the converter technology department at Fraunhofer IWES,
and the use of cloned products to ease public concerns about food safety.""Up to now, we have been able to import reproductive material from third countries.
We are washing our hands letting others do the dirty work, "said MEP Renate Sommer,
and genetically modified foods under the terms of a massive free trade agreement being negotiated with the United states. EU leaders insist health standards will not suffer
what is known as the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). Giula Moi, who with Sommer brought the recommendations forward,
Up until now, cloned farm animals --which are hugely expensive to develop--are used not for food but for breeding purposes,
The Commission's current proposal bans farm animal cloning but would allow the sale of meat
and milk produced by their descendants. The MEP's report was adopted by 529 votes to 120, with 57 abstentions
"arguing that descendants of cloned animals showed no health problems while a complete ban might be difficult to sustain in law w
#Implant Captures Wandering Cancer cells Scientists in the United states say they have created a tiny implant which, in mice for now, captures cancer cells spreading through the body.
Cells moving from the original cancer site to infect other organs in a stealthy process called metastasis are detected usually too late to save a patient's life.
The early detection of circulating tumor cells, or CTCS, in the bloodstream can speed up diagnosis and lifesaving treatment.
But these wandering cancer cells travel in very small numbers, often for long periods of time,
before settling in a new site, and are thus very hard to spot. The study, published in the journal Nature Communication, suggests that capturing CTCS would prevent their spread and help halt disease progression."
"Animals receiving an implant had reduced a significantly burden of disease in their lungs relative to animals that did not have an implant,
"study co-author Lonnie Shea at Northwestern University in Illinois told AFP. In experiments, Shea and a team built biodegradable disks about half-a-centimeter (0. 2 inches) wide,
and implanted two per mouse. The implant--which used immune cells as bait--also contained a scanner to detect the presence of trapped cells."
"The combined systems can enable the early detection of metastatic disease, "Shea said by email."
"The initial benefit is detection--catching the metastasis before it spreads widely throughout the body,
"he explained.""However...the opportunity to reduce burden (of cell spread) can potentially extend the period of time over
which therapies may be effective.""As a bonus, the implant collected metastasized cancer cells for analysis, making it easier to identify the best treatment.
There was no reason to believe the results achieved in lab mice could not be replicated in humans,
said Shea.""The main idea of cells colonizing organs is the same between mice and humans,
we think we can build that into the design of our implant.""Shea said he hoped clinical trials with human cancer sufferers could begin soon n
#Robotic Limb System Learns From Its Mistakes The science of brain-machine interface, or BMI, has made enormous leaps in the last few decades.
For patients with significant motor impairments, BMI tech allows the use of artificial limbs by way of electrodes connected to the brain.
With training, patients can move and control their arms or legs again, literally by thinking about it.
but the training involved is arduous, inefficient and it doesn work for everyone. New research coming out of Europe may change all that, ushering in a new generation of BMI systems.
It works like this: Existing neuroprostheses require the user to generate specific brainwave activities for particular motions xtend left arm, for instance.
The brain activity is picked then up through an electroencephalogram and translated into instructions for the prosthetic limb.
for example, the intelligent prosthesis will make adjustments and increase precision on its own until no error messages are generated
and the goal is achieved. he paradigm shift lies in the use of these signals to relieve the subject from the tedious task of learning,
#Military's Prosthetic Hand Can Feel Researchers fitted a man who has been paralyzed for more than a decade with an experimental prosthetic hand that lets him"feel"sensations,
the US military's futuristic development department said. Scientists wired electrodes into the 28-year-old patient's sensory cortex,
which is the part of the brain that identifies tactile sensations, enabling him to perceive a basic sense of touch.
and said only that he had suffered a spinal cord injury.""By wiring a sense of touch from a mechanical hand directly into the brain,
this work shows the potential for seamless biotechnological restoration of near-natural function, "Sanchez said.
It generates waves by pushing water back and forth against a wall that nearly 33 feet high.
Waves can be produced to mimic anything from rough waters to tsunamis. By generating choppy waters, enormous waves and the like, scientists hope to better test standards for dykes, dunes,
or the decks of rocking boats. Touching down on uneven surfaces is something that today's helicopters are equipped just not to do, according to the Defense Advanced Projects Agency,
or DARPA, the branch of the U s. Department of defense that dreams up new military technologies. But robotic landing gear developed for DARPA at the Georgia Institute of technology (Georgia Tech) could better equip these aircraft to land just about anywhere.
Embedded with force-sensitive contact sensors on each of its feet, the robotic legs determine the precise angle they need to assume to keep the helicopter from tipping over
such as the deck of a rocking ship at sea. Watch the video below. The robotic system is very different from
Neither of these options works well on uneven terrain, which is unfortunate, because helicopters often need to land
The agency said these improved capabilities can"greatly expand"the effectiveness of helicopters used for both military and nonmilitary purposes u
#Smart Mirror Diagnoses Health problems Mirror, mirror on the wall, what my cholesterol level? The Wize Mirror, developed by 11 European research groups,
It artificial intelligence goes beyond reflecting your bad hair day and to actually displaying information about your health from your cholesterol levels to indicators for diabetes.
The mirror uses a series of ultispectralcameras to assess an individual diet, alcohol consumption, physical activity, smoking habit and metabolic risk.
which are substances that have been linked with diabetes and other diseases. The mirror can also assess nutrition and physical activity.
A breathalyzer is used to detect blood sugar levels that can be influenced by alcohol and smoking. According to the SEMEOTICONS project,
but also a gateway to the health of an individual
#China Announces World Largest Cap and Trade Program Chinese President Xi Jinping announced Friday that China will develop a carbon trading system as a way to reduce the country greenhouse gas emissions.
The announcement, made jointly with U s. President Barack Obama, comes as both countries prepare to strike a global carbon emissions agreement at the Paris climate negotiations in December.
The U s. and China are the top greenhouse gas emitting nations in the world. China plans to launch the world largest emissions trading program in 2017,
creating a carbon market for electric power generation, steel, cement and other industries producing most of the country greenhouse gas emissions.
The program is meant to complement the Obama administration Clean Power Plan, which was finalized in August
and aims to slash carbon emissions from electric power plants by 32 percent below 2005 levels by 2030. issued our Clean Power Plan to reduce America carbon emissions,
Obama said at a news conference at the White house. hina will a begin market-based cap
-and-trade system to limit emissions from some of its largest sectors. He said that the two nations are putting forth ur ambitious visionon climate change
so that both the U s. and China can lead the way for other nations to come to a climate agreement in Paris in December.
Xi also announced a reen dispatch approachfor its electric power supply as a strategy to meet the country goal of producing 20 percent of its electricity from renewables by 2030. hina reen dispatchsystem will prioritize power generation from renewable resources,
and establish guidelines to accept electricity first from the most efficient and lowest-polluting fossil fuel generators,
That approach will reduce the need for high-carbon power, such as coal, and encourage the use of more solar and wind power, according to the statement.
Finally, China announced that it will use $3. 1 billion to help developing countries combat climate change. oday
China one of the largest providers of public financing for infrastructure worldwide agreed to work towards strictly controlling public investment flowing into projects with high pollution and carbon emissions both domestically and internationally,
In June, China submitted its pledge to the United nations to peak its greenhouse gas emissions by 2030,
president of the World Resources Institute, a global natural resources think tank, said in a statement that Friday announcement lays a cornerstone for a global climate agreement in Paris in December. hese two countries have found common ground
A long-term goal for the transition to a low-carbon economy this century, creation of a process that builds greater ambition over time,
-and-trade program for carbon emissions will not begin to solve our climate crisis, Food and Water Watch Executive director Wenonah Hauter said in a statement. hrough a system of reditsand dubious and unverifiable offsets,
cap-and-trade programs essentially create a commodity out of pollution, allowing for financial corporations to profit from polluting industries. c
#Micromotors Could Help Reduce Ocean Pollution The buildup of carbon dioxide, a major greenhouse gas, is increasingly impacting oceans around the world, making waters more acidic and threatening sea life.
Nanoengineers at the University of California, San diego have made a splash in trying to overcome this obstacle.
Theye developed tiny motors smaller than the width of a human hair that can autonomously travel through oceans to remove CO2 and convert it to a usable solid form.
Oceanssaltiness Reaching Extremesin a proof-of-concept study, the team revealed that in just five minutes,
an undergraduate researcher and a co-author of the study. The motors are six-micrometer-long tubes with an outer polymer surface that holds a chemical enzyme carbonic anhydrase designed to speed up the reaction between carbon dioxide and water and form bicarbonate.
Adding calcium chloride then converts the bicarbonate to calcium carbonate, a solid material commonly found in nature.
and reused for future applications. f the micromotors can use the environment as fuel, they will be more scalable, environmentally friendly and less expensive, Kevin Kaufmann,
an undergraduate researcher and co-author of the study, said in a press release, adding that in the future, these micromotors could likely be used as part of a water treatment system,
#Better Batteries Through Mushroom Technology Mushrooms never cease to amaze. Theye one of the weirdest organisms on the planet,
Now comes word that researchers at Researchers at the University of California, Riverside Bourns College of Engineering have found yet another use for mushrooms in batteries.
The UC research team has developed a new kind of lithium-ion battery anode using portobello mushrooms,
which could eventually replace the industry standard of synthetic graphite. Besides being less expensive and eco-friendlier
the mushrooms are potentially more efficient as well, thanks to their highly porous composition. The development could have a fairly big impact in multiple industries, actually.
Wee likely to be using a lot more batteries in coming years, particularly in consumer electronics and electric vehicles.
By using biological materials, we can bring down costs and expend less energy in the manufacturing process.
Synthetic graphite, on the other hand, has a relatively high manufacturing cost due to specific preparation and purification processes that can also be harmful to the environment, according to the research team.
The mushroom anodesporosity creates more space for the transfer of energy which can improve battery performance.
But even better, according to the UC team, mushroom anodes could actually result in batteries that increase in efficiency over time, due to the organic material high potassium salt content. ith battery materials like this,
future cell phones may see an increase in run time after many uses, rather than a decrease,
due to apparent activation of blind pores within the carbon architectures as the cell charges and discharges over time,
says researcher Brennan Campbell in press materials accompanying the announcement. Mushrooms are also, as a rule, more tasty than graphite.
Everybody wins. The research findings were published today in the journal Nature Scientific Reports e
#Gene-Edited Pigs May Become Human Parts Researchers have figured out a way to make pig organs for human beings free of dangerous viruses using a controversial gene-editing technique.
The finding sets the stage for transplanting pig organs into humans, as well as the possibility of using gene-editing to engineer a disease-free human.
The finding reported this week by Harvard university researchers in the journal Science Express uses a technology known as CRISPR/Cas-9,
which acts as a super-accurate pair of scissors for editing individual bits of DNA. t a really exciting possibility because it has immediate applications for transplantation,
but also the longer-term proof of concept of something that would be hard to test in humans,
professor of genetics at Harvard university and an author on the paper published this week in Science Express.
However, most experts say a more likely scenario will be using the technology to eliminate genes that cause inherited diseases like Parkinson or Huntington,
I do have Huntingtons or Tay-sachs or some other miserable disease,?, said Arthur Caplan, professor of bioethics at New york University. omeone will say let try to engineer embryos to see
if we could produce a healthy child. That possibility is still several years away, Caplan noted.
But in the meantime, work is progressing rapidly on using CRISPR in animal models like mice, pigs and monkeys in order to see how well it works.
The shortage of organs for transplantation is a major barrier to the treatment of organ failure.
While scientists say they would like to use more pig organs, there are fears about transmission of porcine endogenous retroviruses (PERVS) to humans.
postdoctoral student Luhan Yang and Church were able to eliminate 62 of these retroviruses in a pig kidney cell line.
The researchers say they have to see that the technique works in the living animal itself,
but so far, its use in human embryos is prohibited by researchers that accept funding from the National institutes of health.
Still, Caplan expects a gene-edited human to come from the private world rather than a university
Church also is cofounder of the biotech firm Editas Medicine. He said he expects the company will enter clinical trials next year on a gene-editing process for humans e
#Sonic Tractor Beam Levitates Plastic Beads The future, apparently, is going to be loud. In what is being termed the world first sonic tractor beam,
researchers in Britain have developed an acoustic hologram that can hold, move and manipulate objects in mid-air.
Tractor beams have been a reliable staple in science fiction movies like tar Wars, where theye used to reel in uncooperative Rebel blockade runners and pesky Corellian freighters.
For more details, be sure to check out Wookieepedia, the world best-named wiki fan site.
The tractor beam developed by the U k. team uses high-amplitude sound waves and works on a much smaller scale.
An array of 64 miniature loudspeakers creates three separate sonic force fields that work together in the space just above the speaker array.
Hence the tractor beam effect. Similar freestanding haptic holograms have been developed previously, but without the precision required to hold an object in place
says Bruce Drinkwater, researcher with the University of Bristol, in press materials accompanying the publication of the study.
The sonic tractor beam could have some interesting applications down the line, according to the research team.
Caves Full of Compressed air An unusual project that would store renewable energy in huge amounts of compressed air in two man-made caverns for use in energy generation has been lighted green by the European union.
Energy company Gaeletric project, which will be created under the coastline of Northern ireland County Antrim, will be funded with the help of a EU grant of 6. 5 Million euros ($7. 1 million).
But if a producer could store energy from those sources and then transmit it to the grid in a more regular flow,
it would be easier to compete with fossil fuels. In CAES, the surplus energy from solar and wind installations to compress air into the caverns
which would be carved nearly a mile underground inside geological salt layers deep underground. When the energy was needed,
it would be used to drive turbines that generate electricity. While that all sounds sustainable, BBC reports that some environmentalists are worried
because the company will take the salt removed to create the caverns and eject it into the ocean waters off Northern ireland coast.
Theye concerned that it will raise the salinity and to a level that marine life won be able to tolerate.
and used to store unused off-peak electricity from a coal fired power plant 20 miles away, according to the New york times. But recently the technology has been repurposed for use with renewables a
#Tough-as-Steel Glass Breaks Mold Glass is notoriously breakable. Just ask any twelve-year-boy carrying a bat and searching for his baseball.
because people really want windows that don shatter and you can say same thing for screens on laptops and phones.
A team from the University of Tokyo Institute of Industrial Science are working toward that goal.
They say theye created glass that nearly as strong as steel. Making the material seems surprisingly simple.
They mixed alumina, an oxide of aluminum, with silicon dioxide. Others have tried this before but as soon as they added the alumina to the silicon dixoide inside a container,
The result was a transparent glass nearly as strong as steel and iron. e will establish a way to mass-produce the new material shortly,
Masuno is an assistant professor at the Institute of Industrial Science. e are looking to commercialize the technique within five years, he added r
#Sucking carbon from the sky may not slow climate change As U s. President Barack Obama finalizes plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions today,
if even more extreme measures will be neededuch as using machines to suck carbon dioxide from the environment.
"You hear CDR mentioned as an option to maybe avoid dangerous climate change, but when we did the simulations you see the effect of this technique is quite small,
"says lead author Sabine Mathesius, a climate modeler at the Potsdam Institute for Climate impact Research in Germany.
CDR technologies belong to a class of climate change-fighting techniques known as geoengineering. They include enhancing forests to make them absorb more CO2,
building chemical plants that filter the air directly, and burning biofuels and storing the emitted carbon dioxide underground.
but the Intergovernmental panel on climate change concluded last year that reaching a key emissions goaloughly equivalent to limiting warming to 2°C by 2100ould rely on the deployment of one or several CDR technologies.
Deploying them could cost more than a trillion dollars, one expert estimates. The new study puts the concept of CDR to the testithout getting into the specifics of which technology to use.
The authors used computer simulations to figure out what would happen if engineers removed a whopping 5 gigatons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere each year.
Yet the scientists found the environmental benefits of such a massive technological campaign were surprisingly small, especially in terms of protecting the ocean from the impacts of climate change.
with CDR the acidification was reduced 0. 7 units, the team reports online today in Nature climate change.
"says the geochemist, who works at the Carnegie Institute for Science in Palo alto, California.""Our paper shows that emitting CO2 today
"Commentators on the paper writing in Nature say the work"demonstrates that proposed technological solutions, like CDR,
to the problems of global warming and ocean acidification are no substitute for reducing carbon emissions.""The study could discourage investment in CDR technologies, such as carbon-sucking machines under development by Carbon Engineering in Calgary, Canada.
There scientists are following an approach known as direct air capture (DAC. The firm's Geoff Holmes says CDR has a role despite the study findings."
"Where other options are cheaper and quicker than DAC to mitigate emissions, let use them,
"he says, mentioning technologies that would make buildings or vehicles more energy efficient as one example."
"But as we tackle economy wide emissions and try to drive them to zero, there are likely to be many types of emissions where using DAC is preferable to applying a fix at each source."
"These could include emissions from automobiles, where collecting CO2 pollution from each car is infeasible. c
#Tapeworms may be good for your brain Tapeworms get a bad rap. Theye voracious parasites that burrow into gut walls and devour nutrients like a nightmarish version of The Very Hungry Caterpillar.
But not all tapeworms are bad news. In fact, one type appears to protect against memory loss in rats.
The discovery, researchers say, could lead to new treatments for some neurological diseases in humans, like Alzheimer. lot of people talk about brain-gut connections.
Very few people have data supporting it, says Judy Van de Water, an internal medicine specialist at the University of California,
Davis, who did not take part in the research. his study getting data that can begin addressing the connection more directly.
In the study, researchers divided 30 rats into two main groups: those infected with the rat tapeworm Hymenolepsis diminuta,
and those with clean guts. To test the potential protection offered by H. diminuta, the team infected both groups of rodents with a one-two punch:
and an injection of lipopolysaccharide (LPS) after they had been ormedas adults. LPS is a noninfectious component of bacteria that trips the immune system alarm,
Rats without worm protection will have an overreactive immune response to the initial E coli infection, which increases levels of a specific type of signaling molecule in the brain called interleukin-1 ß (IL-1ß).(
if a second infection occurs, in this case, LPS. To test the effects on the brain, specifically memory,
Williamson and colleagues exposed the rats to a new environment that the rodents soon came to recognize.
the rats got an LPS injection. The following day, researchers placed them back in the box
But the wormless rats paused only half as muchuggesting their memories of the box were incomplete, the team reports in Brain, Behavior, and Immunity.
and infection-free, suggesting that the worms had protected somehow the rats against memory loss after the infections.
Pups born to wormy moms showed no increase in IL-1ß after the E coli infection,
The theory suggests immune systems that evolve without enough exposure to infections (like the wormless rats) overreact
when exposed to even milder forms of infection (like E coli or the LPS injections). Following that theory,
I think it has a lot of therapeutic potential. h
#Tiny ant takes on pesticide industry Few people like antshey bite and overrun kitchen counters.
But in Vietnam, thousands of farmers have turned to weaver ants to help them grow their cashews.
That's because in 2008 researchers showed that these reddish brown insects are so much more effective and cheaper than chemical sprays at eating
or deterring pests that the farmers'net income jumped 71%.%Curious whether weaver ants might be effective alternatives to pesticides in other situations
and eager to see whether biocontrol methods did work, researchers have combed now the literature for relevant research.
When ants came, crop yields often improved, the team concludes online today in the Journal of Applied Ecology.
And the insects proved superior to other pest control methods in four of the six studies that evaluated cost-effectiveness.
Calling this"the best documented case of efficient biocontrol in open agricultural systems, "the researchers think more farmers should make use of ant control.
The idea of using weaver ants is not new they point out. About 1700 years ago, Chinese farmers could buy ants on the market to release in citrus groves,
a practice long forgotten with the invention of chemical pesticides. But now, two European companies are considering how to provide weaver ant nests to farmers,
and a Danish aid project is helping to establish ant nurseries in Africa so as to provide mature colonies to farmers interested in trying out these six-legged pest controllers.
Given that there are 13,000 ant species in the world, the potential may be limitless, the researchers note o
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