Condensation
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MIT researchers want to power your cellphone with dew
Water is pretty wild when you think about it: all of its three states of matter are consumable by humans, and one in particular can even give off electrical power. A team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has discovered that when water condenses on and spontaneously jumps back and forth between specially-treated copper plates, it picks up an electrical charge. To fully take advantage of this ability, said scientists built a machine that harnesses said charge and uses it to create electricity. The researchers admit that yield is low for now, predicting that a cellphone would take around 12 hours to fully charge, but, as MIT News points out, if you're off the grid, there isn't much else of a choice for electricity anyway. One possible drawback of this method, though, is that it inherently requires a humid environment, like a rainforest, for it to work. We'd imagine that a New York summer would suffice, too. [Image credit: paul goyette/Flickr]
iMac screens experiencing unwanted condensation?
One of our readers dropped us a note to tell us that his new 24-inch iMac was exhibiting condensation build up behind the screen: he's not the only one, with a few people on the Apple Support forums and elsewhere also reporting the problem. Our tipster says that condensation builds up in the lower corners, goes away, and then comes back when the surrounding environment drops in temperature. Moisture plus computers doesn't compute, so make sure to report the issue to Applecare if you're seeing the same issues. Hopefully Apple will step up and publicly recognize this as a fault sometime soon.[Thanks, Lee B.]Read - New iMac condensation inside screen (Apple Support)Read - Condensation behind iMac glass (DPreview)Read - iMac Aluminium Condensation (MacInTouch)
