Tag: #57

Oh, to be James Bond. Just once. In ‘Tomorrow Never Dies’, Pierce Brosnan drove his car using a cell phone. Now a mobile home manufacturer has launched the concept of a remote-controlled trailer. Equipped with batteries and wheel hub motors, the trailer can be moved around by app. Makes hitching, unhitching and parking a cinch. While travelling, the electric...

Navigation apps help with directions. Lamps tail us as we walk. Now lighted fish nets are here to make commercial fishing more humane and efficient. A research team equipped their gillnets with green LED lights and used them to fish along the Pacific Coast of Mexico. The innovation reduced bycatch - the capture of non-target species - by...

Decommissioned wind turbines deserve a playful afterlife. And speaking of wind, a startup from India has started manufacturing flags from paper and cotton waste. The flags are embedded with flower and herb seeds and can be planted after use during celebrations. This alternative to plastic flags should help reduce roadside waste, as well as encourage young people to act...

Cancer residue caused by treatment could be removed. Alzheimer’s disease, accounting for 60-70% of dementia cases, is caused by degenerative nerve cells in the brain. The body’s energy to remove them comes from mitochondria. If these become damaged, however, the whole cell dies. Making the clean-up process increasingly problematic as we age. Now, an international research team spearheaded by...

Our heart can power a pacemaker and body heat fitness trackers. Why not use wasted heat from warm water pipes in a similar way? Pipes are round; generators that convert heat into electricity, generally flat. Cue a research team from Penn State, and its new manufacturing process for flexible generators. A dozen strips, each holding 6 current transformers, were...

Originality isn’t just for the fashion industry. Following on from the success of indigenous tribes in Australia, a PhD student at Charles Darwin University recently teamed up with a music producer. He recorded the sounds of endangered bird species and together with the producer they produced a 24-minute album within three weeks. It features the chatter and calls of...