research
-
Moss-Covered Table Uses Photosynthesis To Power An FM Radio
As an electricity source, what could be greener than plants? That’s the idea behind this rig, the world’s first system that powers an FM radio using nothing more than the photosynthetic powers of moss. And creators Fabienne Felder and Dr Paolo Bombelli are just getting started.
-
The Reason We Yawn Might Actually Be To Cool Down Our Brains
Just like the CPU in your computer, the human brain has an optimal temperature where it runs best. But unlike a computer’s CPU, there’s no built-in fan to chill the brain when it starts to run hot. Which is why researchers now believe that yawning is actually the body’s physiological way of keeping the brain…
-
World’s Thinnest LED Is Only Three Atoms Thick
LEDs have come a long ways. From the early ’70s when a bulky LED watch cost thousands of dollars to LG’s announcement last month that it had created an OLED TV as thin as a magazine, these glowing little bits of magic have become wonderfully cheap and impossibly small. But guess what: they’re about to…
-
Colour Solar Panels Let Stained Glass Windows Produce Cheap Power
Because solar panels are designed to accumulate as much light from the sun as possible, they’re typically very dark in colour. It makes them more efficient, but also kind of an eyesore, minimising their adoption. So researchers at the University of Michigan have developed what they believe to be the world’s first semi-transparent, coloured solar…