Well, exams are over (and passed), so now i won’t have to take an exam or be at a lecture again … ever. As promised the rate of articles will pick up somewhat now, so here goes.

It seems like every other story we do somehow involves MIT doing something revolutionary, those guys are really at the forefront of science/engineering. This time around they claim to have made the worlds most power-efficient solar power solution.

The contraption is basically a cleverly designed mirror that focuses the sunlight it reflects onto a small area that absorbs the heat from the light quite efficiently into copper wires, that then transfer the heat to water surrounding them. The water then heats up and eventually produces steam, that could be used to power turbines, creating electricity. I could babble on here about the design and such, but MIT’s news service is actually quite good, and they have a video with the lead-designer explaining everything quite well, and he even demonstrates how the light beam is powrful enough to quickly make a plank of wood go up in flames. So check out this video here. I can also recommend reading their press-release on the matter.

Sorry for the infrequent posts here guys, my last exam is tomorrow so hopefully the frequency of posts will start going up again then.

In the meantime, i just wanted to draw your attention to a press-release from NASA where they are announcing that they have given out a deal to a contractor to develop a new space-suit by 2015. This is set to coincide with the return to the moon, so the spacesuit is required to be able to function both for space-walks at the international space station, as well as being suited for multiple moonwalks without needing much maintenance. Now the really cool thing about this, is that i had no idea they were actually planning a 6 month trip to the moon! I knew they were set to return, but not for such an extended period of time. To quote the article:

The suit will need to cope with a large number of moonwalks with minimal maintenance during the planned six-month lunar outpost expeditions.

Well this probably isn’t mind-blowing to many of you, as I’m positive this is very old news (it’s after all been a while since they announced they’d return to the moon), but somehow it completely escaped me. I can highly recommend reading the press-release, it’s quite well written and informative.

With the news hitting that Sergei Brin, supreme overlord of Google, will be hitting space with the worlds first private spaceflight to ISS, we can’t help but say: It’s good to be rich.

With a down payment of 5million dollars, space is one of the most exclusive (and least luxurious, see the broken space toilet story) destinations available to us puny humans. The company, called Space Adventures, has made a deal with the Russian space agency to get two seats on a specifically manufactured Soyuz flight starting 2011, that will take the millionaires to the international space station.

Now this is obviously great news, being a staunch capitalist myself (unlike my hippie co-writer Brink), i am very happy to see more competitors in the field of private spaceflight. I’m sure we all remember the famous SpaceShipOne, the first commercial space endevour that won the coveted X-Prize (a prize given to the first privately funded team to reach space). What you may not know, is that Richard Branson actually invested in the idea and is planning to launch Virgin Galactic very soon. The production of their vehicle (SpaceShipTwo) is finished, and they expect to start test-flights (of which there will be 50-100) this month. Now, taking a flight with Virgin Galactic will obviously not be as fun as actually going to ISS and living in zero-G. SpaceShipTwo “only” flies up to 110km (slightly more then SpaceShipOne) and then goes back to earth, giving only a short period of weightlessness and outer-spacy-ness, BUT it will be MUCH cheaper. The first (100) customers put in a deposit of 200.000$, from there it will slowly decline in cost over the years, and will eventually cost 20.000$ per person. Now that’s still a lot of moolah, but at least it’s something within the reach of ordinary people, and if you look at this video, i think you’ll agree that the view is worth it.

You don’t believe me? Well I almost don’t believe me myself, but this new architectural concept is simply AMAZING. While it’s normally not the main area of focus here on ReducedMass, hang on for a while and see how we might be living in the future.

This new concept is called Dynamic Architecture and boasts a number of new innovative ideas that separates it from the crowd. I’m mainly going to tell you what you can see in the promotion video and read on the website, so head over there if you want to see for yourself.

First of all, what makes the building look so cool is that each floor rotates independently around the central cylinder, making it possible to follow the Sun or whatever suits the people living there. Everybody wants to rotate the amount that is just right for them, and the building will never look the same again. With this particular feature I really hope there are only one apartment per floor, as there could be some serious fights going on around sunrise, dinnertime and sunset, making it fun for less fortunate people to come watch the building at these times. Also, I wonder if there would be some times where people were encouraged to rotate back to the original setting, resetting the looks of the building once in an while. Is this rotation business a toy that you will outgrow in a couple of weeks? Could be, but let’s see when they build the first one.

Well enough with the fun, this building has more useful ideas hidden. Between each floor are wind turbines rotating in the horizontal plane and each creating around 0.3 megawatt of electricity. With around 50 of these in a skyscraper, the building would be able to be totally self-sustainable and even release a lot of green electricity to the neighborhood. I don’t know if this would actually work, with the wings being hidden in between the floors and all, but I must assume they’ve run some simulations or similar to get the 0.3 megawatt result. Once again, we’ll figure it out if they put the thing up.

As mentioned, this building looks interesting enough to start constructing, and as far as I can tell from the site, they are already planning the first one to be raised in Dubai. In the video they are also showing how the building is constructed from modules of green material, claiming that it will only take a day to assemble a finished floor. All in all if this building can deliver everything it claims, me might have a small revolution at hand.

Once again it is news from MIT (it would appear that their extravagant tuition fees are paying off), this time around carbon nanotubes (buzzwords ahoy!) engineered to detect deadly gases such as sarin, mustard gas and VX nerve agents.

Sarin is probably best known for the terrorist attack on the subway system in Tokyo back in the mid 90’s, and it can kill at very low concentrations, so very sensitive detectors are needed if they are to be effective, and it would appear that MIT has delivered. They use a device to rapidly separate the different gases present in the air, before feeding it through the nano-tubes. The gas molecules can then attach themselves to the nanotubes, which changes the way electricity flows through them, thus creating a way to detect specific gases in the air (different molecules will effect the electrical-resistivity of the nanotubes differently).

They had to go one step further though, because as you might imagine, this would pretty much be a one-shot-wonder if the molecules just stayed attached to the nanotubes, needing a fresh batch for every measurement. So they coated the nanotubes with amine type molecules which drastically reduces the time they are attached to the them, releasing the gas molecules within milliseconds. This, coupled with the fact that it only requires 0.0003 Watts to operate, means that you essentially have a continuous detector of deadly gases, that can basically run forever on a basic battery. Not too shabby.

MIT always seems to be pumping out cool new things, and this time it’s environmentally friendly to boot. We’ve all seen pictures (or at least Simpsons episodes) involving oil spills and have some idea of just how hard it is to clean up thousands of gallons of oil in water. But hopefully this new invention from MIT is a step towards handling these disasters better.

What they have done is create a material that does not absorb water at all, but it does absorb oil (and other hydrophobic fluids). It is also possible to recycle it for additional uses, that is, removing the oil from the towel and use it again, moreover the removed oil can actually be extracted and used again. Given the fact that over 200.000 tons of oil have already been spilled in oceans since 2000, this is sure to be a welcome tool to those in the business of cleaning up after the spills. It should be noted that this is NOT the first material of this kind, this is however, according to the MIT press-release anyway, the most effective one (that is, the other materials absorb water along with the oil, this one doesn’t).

Given the fact that they say that the production method used to make this material is pretty much the same as used to make normal paper towels, I’d imagine that the production costs aren’t that high and that this could be put to use fairly quickly, lets hope. The picture on top here (courtesy of MIT) shows water with oil in it before and after being introduced to the material, you can also check out this ultra-short video at the MIT site, showing it in action.

I know this is kind of last minute, but i wanted to let everyone know that if you want to (and i hope you do), you can watch the phoenix spacecraft land on Mars LIVE over at NASA TV.

Touchdown of the phoenix mars lander is expected to happen just before 8:00PM Eastern time (little more then two hours from writing this), but the live broadcast will actually start at 6:30PM (see the full schedule here). You will be getting all the images at the exact same time as everyone over at NASA, so you can follow it live as it goes through what they are calling 7 minutes of hell in it’s entry into the Marsian atmosphere.

Due to time difference and school early tomorrow i’m afraid i won’t be able to stay up and follow the events, but i can highly recommend heading over to Phil Plaits Bad Astronomy Blog, i’m sure he’ll be covering the entire event with style.

Not that i was specifically looking for more football news (and this really isn’t that related), but here goes.

Scientists at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, have developed the worlds most sophisticated robot, at least most sophisticated when it comes to walking like a human. If you’re anything like me, you’re not overly impressed with the awkward way those “dancing robots” from Japan are moving around (and waving fans), i mean it’s cool and all, but far away from being the robotic overlords we’ve all been waiting for. But leave it to Holland to bring us one step closer. Check out this video of Flame, their new robot.

Making a robot walk like a human is no easy task, as it is really a series of controlled falls, but i think you’ll agree that this robot is getting pretty close. I also like their flair! Pointless flashing LED’s in front and a skull in the shape of a blue flame. Kudos Holland.

Now i promised that this was somehow related to football as well, and indeed it is. The creators of the robot intend on competing in the 2008 RoboCup, an annual competition that pits robot teams against each other in a game of football. To read more about the robot itself and the research being done on it, check out the press-release.

This isn’t exactly breaking science news, but it is still a pretty cool demonstration of electrostatic force.

I saw this news over at Popular Mechanics, and according to them the inventors of this lovely device are a non-profit group called SRI. They will be unveiling this new design of a wall-climbing robot shortly, but until then you’ll have to watch the video from the original story.

What’s happening here is basically the same as when you rub a balloon against your hair and it sticks to the wall. There is a buildup of electric charge on the balloon as a result of rubbing it on your hair, and because of this it is able to stick to most wall surfaces. The vehicle does the same thing, creating an electric charge on a large surface of the car (probably on the belt it uses to move), causing a strong enough attraction to the wall to overcome gravity.

If i had to guess, I’d say that the car was built much like a Van der Graaf generator, which is basically a machine made for creating a huge amount of electrostatic charge (you might recognize it if you see one, it’s basically a pole with a big metal sphere on top, it’ll emit sparks if you get too close). Van der Graaf generators are fairly simple contraptions, consisting of a conveyor belt that literally transfers electrons from small needles at the bottom, to the sphere on top (check out HowStuffWorks.com’s guide to Van Der Graaf generators if you want to know more). My guess is that the belt that is moving the machine, works in much the same way, collecting electrons onto the belt and using them to “stick” to the wall. I’m sure there is more to it, and there’s a pretty good chance that i’m just talking out of my ass, but hey, it’s fun to guess. If you think you know how it works, leave comments! I’d love to hear your ideas.

Now i’m not one to love all things labeled “nano”, but being a HUGE soccer (football!) fan, i can’t resist this piece of news.

The national institute of standards and technology (NIST) is now giving the public a chance to watch the second annual nano-soccer cup, where competitors from various research institutes will compete with tiny robots to complete various tasks. The nano-bots will be controlled via remote-control and react to changes in magnetic field, or through electric signals sent through the microchip arena (which is about the size of a single rice). The robots will compete in events such as the two millimeter dash, the slalom (dodging between obstacles to make it to the goal), ball handling skills, which involves moving balls into a goal. Much hope is tied to nanobots being a big thing in the medical field in the future, performing microsurgery and such, plus of course, they will play an intricate part in the BORG plan to assimilate all races (as long as 7of9 is there, i welcome my borg overlords).

It should be said though, that it would appear that they have slapped the nano-label on these things as a way to cash in on the nano-hype, as the actualy bots are several micrometer long (one micrometer is 1.000 nano-meters). They claim that because the robots actually weigh nano-GRAMS they can rightfully call it a nanobot competition, but to me it just seems that people are eager to call anything nano as it’s a pop-thing these days. You can see a nano-bot with a micrometer scale next to it in our image above (courtesy of NIST)

Be that as it may! It’s still darn impressive and i can highly recommend checking out their website. There they actually have pictures of the soccer ball to be used, the actual field and even sweet pictures last years nanobots that competed for nano-soccer glory.