Category Science & Technology

Researchers at the University of Michigan have created a lattice-like solar cell that can stretch like an accordion, allowing it to tilt along the sun’s trajectory and capture more energy. The unique solar cell is inspired by the ancient art of paper cutting, known as kirigami.

The new design helps fix a problem with most solar power systems – the sun moves and the panels don’t. the kirigami cells are made of flexible, thin-film gallium arsenide strips that have been cut in a simple, two-dimensional pattern. When the cells are stretched using a motorized mechanism, the sheets twist open into three dimensions, offering raised surfaces to track the sun over a radius of about 120 degrees. The patterned film can collect 30 per cent more solar energy than conventional cells would.

The idea has the potential to make rooftop solar much more efficient, but in the near future, researchers say it would be more feasible for smaller aerospace applications.

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Mars may one day have rings similar to Saturn’s famous halo, new research suggests.

The two moons of Mars, Phobos and Deimos, are named after the children of the god Ares, the Greek counterpart to Mars, the Roman god of war. The larger, inner moon, Phobos is the only remaining inwardly migrating moon known to exist today.

Phobos, is just 22 kms wide and orbits the Red Planet rapidly, rising and setting twice each Martian day. The tiny moon is slowly drawing closer to Mars by 6.5 feet every century which may result in a dramatic crash into the Martian surface within 30-50 million years, previous research has shown.

Researchers now suggest that instead of going out in a single, enormous impact, the moon will be pulled apart by Martian gravity. After simulating the stresses caused by the tidal pull of Mars, found that the moon would break up over the course of 20-40 million years, forming a ring of debris around the planet. The rubble would continue to move inward towards the planet, and over the span of 1 million to 100 million years, the particles would rain down on the equatorial region of Mars. Initially, the ring could be as dense as Saturn’s, but it would become thinner as the particles fall down onto the planet over time.

What would the Martian ring look like? “From one angle, the ring will reflect extra light towards a viewer, and it will look like a bright curve in the sky,” says Tushar Mittal, one of the authors of the research paper. “From another angle, the viewer might be in the ring’s shadow, and the ring would be a dark curve in the sky.”

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Out of 425,000 e-buses worldwide at the end of last year, 421,000 were in China, a Bloomberg report found. The e-fleet is projected to rise to over 600,000 buses by 2025. Electric buses have become the norm in many Chinese cities. Shenzhlen, a city of 13 million people, has a fleet of over 16,000 electric buses, and it’s making a huge difference. China’s electric buses save more diesel than all the world’s electric cars combined.

To achieve this wide-scale implementation, China used a top-down approach (as is usually the case with the Asian country). National objectives were implemented, both for manufacturers and municipalities, and the policy was used to nurture a productive competition between major cities. Meanwhile, in the US, the opposite is happening — the current administration discourages the national implementation of low-emission transport, and local markets are trying to fill in the void. Even in Europe, which is doing a bit better than the US with 2,250 electric buses, policy has not been decisive enough to fuel a revolution in electric transportation. The rest of Asia, despite some progress, also lags behind.

Buses are excellently suited for transitioning to electric engines: they follow a relatively short and stable route and can be easily recharged between rides. They also transport many more people than a regular car, which means that the positive impact is maximized.

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Billed as “one of the most exciting artists of our time”, Ai-Da is the brainchild of Aidan Meller, who claims she is the world’s first ultra-realistic humanoid artist, able to draw creatively thanks to artificial intelligence (AI).

Ai-Da is named after Ada Lovelace, the English mathematician and writer often called the world’s first computer coder.

Ai-Da uses her camera “eyes” to capture what is in front of her, which an internal computer translates into coordinates of the image to be plotted on paper. She ran currently hold only hard tools like pencils, not brushes. Her paint works are printed onto canvas with a human painting it over. Her works of art include abstract images and pencil sketches of historical figures from Leonardo da Vinci to Alan Turing.

Ai-Da can move, allowing what Meller calls “performance art”. He hopes that she will eventually be able to intuitively communicate and describe her own artwork. For the moment she is given voice by a human helper.

Art work created by Ai-Da for her first exhibition has already sold for over 1 million.

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Researchers from Nature Conservation Foundation, Mysore, in a study carried out in Pakke Tiger Reserve in Arunachal Pradesh noted that hornbills, one among the large-sized frugivores (fruit-eaters), are the most effective seed dispersers.

“They were found to swallow and disperse most of the fruits they handled. They also removed maximum number of fruits – and therefore seeds – in every visit to a fruiting tree,” explains Dr Rohit Naniwadekar, author of the study. “They swallow the fruit as a whole causing no damage to the seed. They are known to disperse seeds far away from the parent plant and our previous studies have shown that they can disperse up to 13 kms.”

Sadly, hornbills are also the most threatened because they are hunted for meat, and tribal communities use their feathers for headdresses.

“Seeds that fall under the parent tree face heavy competition, predation by rodents and insects, and fungal infections. So their chances for survival are very low. Plants depend on frugivorous birds to disperse the seeds at favourable sites. And so the decline of frugivores could severely affect the ecosystem,” he added.

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Between October 2011 and November 2017, at least 259 people around the world died taking selfies, according to the Journal of Family Medicine and Primary Care in India, compared to just 50 people killed by sharks in the same period.

And the death toll is increasing incrementally each year as smartphones become more sophisticated and Selfie-sticks increase the range at which people can snap themselves, prompting them to take bigger risks for the perfect shot.

In October 2018, an Indian couple fell to their deaths trying to take a Selfie a Taft Overlook at Yosemite National Park (U.S). The couple’s Instagram account often showed them in dangerous situations.

While woman take the most selfies, young men, who are more prone to taking risks, make up three quarters of “selfecides”. Most deaths are caused by drowning, being hit by vehicles, falling, posing with loaded weapons or wild animals or while driving.

India, with a population of more than 1.3 billion and 800 million cell phones, had the highest number of deaths (159 so far) partly because the country has a high number of people younger than 30, and because selfies in India are especially trendy.

The study concluded that ‘no Selfie zones’ should be declared across tourist areas, especially water bodies, mountain peaks and tall buildings to decrease the incidence of Selfie-related deaths.

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