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POPSFriendship: The Laws of Attraction Friendship: The Laws of Attraction The conventional wisdom is that we choose friends because of who they are. But it turns out that we actually love them because of the way they support who we are. By:Karen Karbo
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POPSSun + Water = Fuel Michael Grätzel, however, may have a clever way to turn Nocera's discovery to practical use. A professor of chemistry and chemical engineering at the École Polytechnique Fédérale in Lausanne, Switzerland, he was one of the first people Nocera told about his new catalyst. "He was so excited," Grätzel says. "He took me to a restaurant and bought a tremendously expensive bottle of wine." In 1991, Grätzel invented a promising new type of solar cell. It uses a dye containing ruthenium, which acts much like the chlorophyll in a plant, absorbing light and releasing electrons. In Grätzel's solar cell, however, the electrons don't set off a water-splitting reaction. Instead, they're collected by a film of titanium dioxide and directed through an external circuit, generating electricity. Grätzel now thinks that he can integrate his solar cell and Nocera's catalyst into a single device that captures the energy from sunlight and uses it to split water.
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POPSPhysicist Claims First Real Demonstration of Cold Fusion "Arata and Zhang demonstrated very successfully the generation of continuous excess energy from ZrO2-nano-Pd sample powders under D2 gas charging and generation of helium-4," Takahashi told New Energy Times. "The demonstrated live data looked just like data they reported in their published papers . This demonstration showed that the method is highly reproducible."
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POPSIs Time disappearing from the universe? At an everyday level, the change would not be perceptible. However, it would be obvious from cosmic scale measurements tracking the course of the universe over billions of years. The change would be infinitesimally slow from a human perspective, but in terms of the vast perspective of cosmology, the study of ancient light from suns that shone billions of years ago, it could easily be measured Difficult to fathom.
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POPSSay Goodbye to power cords and battery packs This sounds really interesting. It's not in the practical stages yet, but how convenient would it be to charge your cellphone, mp3 player or laptop without having to plug it in? I know in my house, free outlets are hard to come by, so this is something I can really get behind.
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POPSFuture of wind power - will be HUGE! I think it's incredibly exciting to be living during a time of such change. We are talking about a massive change in global dynamics that has already begun. The next few decades should be amazing.
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POPSKites could provide electricity for 100,000 homes Several other scientists are investigating the use of kites to harness energy from the wind - which some researchers estimate provides more than 100 times the amount required to power the entire planet. In 2007, Google´s philanthropic arm invested about $10 million in a US kite company called Makani. An Italian company called Kitegen has a multi-kite scheme that could generate a gigawatt of power, as much as a standard coal plant.
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POPS0.3% of Saharan Sun Enough To Power Europe The visionary proposal comes as the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission released its strategic energy technology plan which highlighted photovoltaic cells as one of the eight technologies that need to be developed in the future. The plan also includes fuel cells, hydrogen, clean coal, second generation biofuels, nuclear fusion, wind and smart grids.
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POPSAn 82-year-old's perspective on the debates She says: "It’s OK. We’ve been part of the greatest generation. We had our turn. Now we get to sit back and enjoy our pie while someone else worries about the calories. The new guy has the energy and the new ideas. Senator Obama, I hope you’re up for the challenge."
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POPSThe key to oil independence is a new electrical grid It seems that with alternative sources of energy, such as wind and solar, the United States has the potential means to substantially reduce our dependence on oil - especially once plug-in cars are on the market. But until we substantially upgrade our nation's electrical grid with modern technology that will enable the energy created by these sources to be transmitted intelligently around the county, their impact will be limited. It's going to take a greater commitment from Congress to jump start this. Making it happen will provide a huge boost to our economy, environment and political leverage with the Middle East, Russia, Venezuela and more.
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POPSString Theory Faster-Than-Light Drive Proposed Dreams of interstellar travel may need to be put on hold for the moment, however. Cleaver and Obousy estimate that the amount of energy needed to influence the extra dimension is equivalent to the entire mass of Jupiter being converted into pure energy for a ship measuring roughly 10 meters by 10 meters by 10 meters. "That is an enormous amount of energy," Cleaver said. "We are still a very long ways off before we could create something to harness that type of energy." But what if we could make ourselves very very small??? I am ready to squeeze myself quite a bit to get really far... :-)
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POPS'Major discovery' from MIT primed to unleash solar revolution Sunlight has the greatest potential of any power source to solve the world's energy problems, said Nocera. In one hour, enough sunlight strikes the Earth to provide the entire planet's energy needs for one year. "This is a major discovery with enormous implications for the future prosperity of humankind,"
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POPSPaper Bags or Plastic Bags? Everything You Need to Know So, while it's good to have the alternative (and to recognize the innovation it represents), bioplastics aren't quite ready to save us from the paper or plastic debate. Paper bags or plastic bags: the conclusion Both paper and plastic bags require lots and lots of resources and energy, and proper recycling requires due diligence from both consumer and municipal waste collector or private recycling company, so there are a lot of variables that can lead to low recycling rates. Ultimately, neither paper nor plastic bags are the best choice; we think choosing reusable canvas bags instead is the way to go. From an energy standpoint, according to this Australian study, canvas bags are 14 times better than plastic bags and 39 times better than paper bags, assuming that canvas bags get a good workout and are used 500 times during their life cycle. Happy shopping!
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POPSCan we harness energy from outer space? While nuclear fusion has already been tested with the hydrogen isotopes deuterium and tritium, those reactions give off the majority of their energy as radioactive neutrons, raising both safety and production concerns. Helium-3, on the other hand, is perfectly safe. It doesn't give off any pollution or radioactive waste and poses no danger to surrounding areas. helium-3 has two protons but only one neutron. When it's heated to very high temperatures and combined with deuterium, the reaction releases incredible amounts of energy. Just 2.2 pounds (one kilogram) of helium-3 combined with 1.5 pounds (0.67 kilograms) of deuterium produces 19 megawatt-years of energy Roughly 25 tons of the stuff could power the United States for an entire year.
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