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Inhabitat's Week in Green: lenses that magnify wind, spider silk bacteria, and the largest solar sports facility
Each week our friends at Inhabitat recap the week's most interesting green developments and clean tech news for us -- it's the Week in Green. This week Inhabitat showcased the best and brightest new developments from the world of clean tech. Stanford opened up new horizons for renewable energy as they unveiled a solar technology that can harvest electricity from both heat and light -- a significant improvement over photovoltaics, whose efficiency wilts in the sun. We also looked at Pocono Raceway, the recently-crowned world's largest solar-powered sports facility, and an innovative new type of "Wind Lens" turbine that could increase energy generation by a magnitude of three times. We also saw green tech take to the skies as Boeing unveiled a super-efficient airplane that could cut fuel consumption by 70% and scientists floated a plan to create gigantic orbiting balloons that could solve our space junk problem. It was a big week for alternative autos as well -- Paris announced that it will be launching its Autolib electric car sharing program next year, and a poo-powered VW Bug burned... rubber on the streets of Bristol. In other news, we showcased an ultra-efficient Danish home that produces more energy than it needs. Future-forward biotech couture was a hot topic as well as scientists found a way to produce spider silk from metabolically engineered bacteria. And we couldn't help but want to share these adorable and amazingly detailed little LEGO CubeDudes created by PIXAR animator Angus MacLane.
Salmon sperm used to intensify LEDs, grossify everyone
See, the problem with bioengineering isn't moral or ethical dilemmas, or even homicidal robo-droids enslaving humanity. It's that if you let researchers go wild, eventually they'll find a way to make LEDs out of salmon sperm, threatening the sanctity (and sperm-free-ness) of your entire gadget-based lifestyle. Yet that's exactly what Professor Andrew Steckl of the University of Cincinnati has managed to do, using the DNA found in salmon sperm to enhance the brightness of LEDs. The so-called BioLEDs are being developed in cooperation with the Air Force (yes, the Air Force -- they had a "good source" of salmon sperm, apparently) and they've been so successful that Steckl has been getting salmon sperm from researchers worldwide "wanting to see if their sperm is good enough." Steckl says that since salmon sperm is considered a waste product of the fishing industry, BioLEDs are particularly green -- kind of like our faces right now.
Paul Sage promises changes for Specialist classes
Hey all you Specialists out there! Feeling a bit down? Tired of your Soldier friends flaunting those fancy chainguns and graviton armor while you run through the Plains in motor assist? Sick of throwing heals at pick up groups who forget you're even there? Well hang in there friends, because Paul Sage has the answer for you! According to the erstwhile Tabula Rasa designer, many of the changes in patch 1.3 are aimed at shoring up some of the weaknesses in the Biotech and Medic trees, including an AE damage/heal for the Biotech and a big debuff ability in Disease for Medics.Perhaps more importantly, Sage revealed that they're going to be tweaking the significance of attributes to try and make Health a more meaningful statistic, instead of its utility now, which is basically just a rough estimation of how long it will be until you die once your armor is worn down. These changes won't be coming until 1.4, so they may be over a month away, but it's reason enough to go back to level 5 and retry that Specialist clone again, if you haven't already.
New tech keeps tabs on your liver via cellphone
In the scheme of things, blood alcohol-screening phones probably stand to save more lives than... uh, Glutamine Oxaloacetic Transaminase and Glutamine Pyruvic Transaminase (affectionately known as GOT and GPT) screening phones, but health tech is health tech, and we've no doubt there's someone out there who's going to benefit from this. A crack team at Korea's Research Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology has developed a sensor that monitors GOT and GPT -- key indicators of liver function -- and uploads key stats via phone, presumably to a hospital or other interested parties. So if you've had the exact same idea kicking around for a while, sorry to say you might as well drop it now; the patent apps are filed and the team plans to pursue commercialization in the near future.[Via textually.org]
