“Recycling” Fracking Wells

“Geothermal Engineering”, a Cornwall European company, innovated a peculiar idea. This idea is to recycled previously used and exhausted fracking (hydraulic fracturing wells) harvested from oil and gas industries as a geothermal power source. The company will be specifically used old wells drilled by “Cuadrilla”, a fracking company. Recent notes have called for a systematic design where the fracking wells will potentially deliver both shale gas and a ‘renewable’ geothermal heat.

Newly established geothermal plants have relatively high foundation costs. This approach at utilizing previously drilled wells for innovative purposed could provide a more economic approach to implementing this clean energy source. The managing director of the company, Ryan Law, mentioned that the program could bore positive results. “The possibility of using existing wells enables us to not only deliver renewable geothermal heat at a much lower cost but also to recycle wells that would otherwise be wasted”, stated by Law.  These results could effect the reduction of costs associated with geothermal projects.

So, what do you think? Should we utilizing a destructive practice (Fracking) in a positive way? Or terminate the practice entirely?

Read more at this article: http://tiny.cc/kx4mwx

Light: now one step closer to replacing electricity in the transportation of information

Current technology utilizes the movement of electrons to carry information through many of the things that we take for granted, such as computers and television. In an effort to carry information at a faster rate, we've replaced electricity with beams of light, which move thousands of times faster due to the fact that there is no longer any need to deal with natural resistance caused by wires.

The problem with light is that it cannot easily change direction without it being weakened or distorted, which can cause a loss in the transmitted information. Altering the light's path without such consequences requires a gradual turn, which is inefficient for practical use in today's small devices. However, thanks to researchers at the University of Texas El Paso and the University of Central Florida, advancements in nanotechnology have overcome that hurdle.

The device they use to achieve such a feat is a plastic device smaller than a bee's stinger. It is a lattice structure shaped in such a way that light that enters it can be guided around corners without any loss of energy, allowing for the optical transmission of data in small, possibly handheld, devices.

These kind of components may one day be used in our laptops, cellphones, and other everyday devices that require the transmission of information. For now, the team of researchers that created this device are looking to improve it, seeking a way to make light beams take sharper turns in less space.

http://phys.org/news/2015-03-scientists-critical-gen-super-fast.html

Repairing Damaged Nerves via 3D Printing

In cases with traumatic injuries casualties are susceptible to damaged nerves. What that means is that the 3 types of nerves you have in you body, the autonomic, the motor , and the sensory nerves are unable to function as they were created. Damage to the nerves causes dysfunctions such as unable to control muscles and even losing sensation in the body part rendering you unable to feel pain in that area.

There are currently methods of repairing nerve endings which require suturing the nerve endings in surgery but results prove to be rather inefficient in producing desirable results for not only the patients but the doctors as well. What’s needed is a way to repair the nerves to restore function as close to the way the patient was prior to the injury. This is where the 3D printers come in.

Using their Nerve Guidance Conduit(NGC) on mouses, the Scientists at the University of Sheffield have successfully restored nerve function on a mouse. The scientists utilized a form of 3D printing called Computer Aided Design(CAD) in order to create unique nerves personalized to the patient being treated.The benefits of 3D printing are quite obvious, the modern technology permits clinicians to print exact models that encourages the self-repairing of nerves over time. Their experiments with the mouse concluded with the repair of a 3mm injury gab over the course of 21 days. All that is left is to conduct trials on a larger scale to see if the NGC works. This brings great potential in restoring nerve function to patients who no longer have them at the moment.

Learn more about nerve damage here: http://www.webmd.com/brain/nerve-pain-and-nerve-damage-symptoms-and-causes 

Click on the link below to read more on NGCs:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/02/150223104159.htm

Written by: Josh Estores

Google Artificial Intelligence

Google's artificial intelligence, DeepMind, has figured out how to play and master a handful of Atari video games. Partnered with Oxford University, Google developed an AI unit capable of learning and bettering itself over time. ”with its algorithm can not only learn how to play computer games from scratch - but go on to ace them after a few hours of practice.” This self taught AI not is not only capable of learning from past mistakes, it also has the capability to develop new tactics based on them.  At first, the algorithm struggles to return the ball but, after a few hundred plays, it eventually learns the best strategy to beat the game: break a tunnel into the side of the brick wall and then aim the ball behind the wall.” This is one step forward for science as it shows that we can create more delicate robots implemented with artificial intelligence, capable of distinguishing right from wrong and that are able to perform more delicate tasks.

http://www.usatoday.com/videos/tech/2015/02/26/24079545/

http://www.zdnet.com/article/googles-deepmind-artificial-intelligence-aces-atari-gaming-challenge/

Written by: Jeff Almozar

A Minute's Charge

A tedious task most young adults face nowadays is having to charge their phones on the dial. In certain cases, this repeated charging session can happen more than once a day depending on the user. There is a plethora of different smart phone devices that have varying uses. Some of these uses can list from job-related tasks/quotas to daunting social media platforms (i.e. Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Snap Chat). While many devices have a battery interfaces that can last through the day, there are plenty of other devices that do not. Battery interfaces have become a hot issue for all smartphone makers alike. As communal productivity increases, the need for technology increases too. These smartphone makers are amidst the different options they can go into in terms of steady performance and task endurance. It wasn’t until later last year where a unique Israeli company showed potential in finding the solution to smartphone battery interfaces once and for all.

The StoreDot is a by-product of presumably unrelated research made by the nanotechnology department at the Tel Aviv University. While looking into the Alzheimer’s disease, the researchers discovered a peculiar peptide molecule that has high capacitance (ability to hold an electric charge). Batteries utilizing the peptide molecule absorb electric charges faster than previous smartphone batteries. Another aspect to look into is the battery’s capacity. Interestingly enough, the overall capacity for these peptide batteries are smaller. The current state of the StoreDot cannot be used in existing smartphones and tablets due to its low capacity. However, that doesn’t stop the StoreDot's company leaders from further developing their much-needed battery. The need for modification of these battery interfaces has been identified as well. The company had already discussed the future of utilizing the StoreDot in future smartphone contenders with more than fifteen different smartphone makers. Of these makers, one of two companies hopes to use of this technology in future device by the Christmas of year 2016.

With the addition of the battery alone, the company needs to create a special charger and handset component that can easily sync into the fast-charging feature the peptide battery StoreDot has. The addition of these select pieces can cause the phone’s cost to increase. This increase would be approximately $50 USD. It was suggested, by the company, that many buyers would not mind paying the additional fees necessary for a strong battery charge. This poses a question: Who would not be willing to switch?

Read more at: http://tiny.cc/p35mux

Written by: Sofia Azmal

Car and Vehicle Safety Programming

The partial control or autonomy of vehicles is pretty prevalent today and we know these features as co-piloting in planes or cruising in cars. Google, one of the leading search engines, is working on a prototype of a car that does not require a steering wheel. Their aim is to create a driverless car in which technology is in control. Safety programming is involved when we do hand over our control to technology. The company has to take into consideration the factors that apply such as human interaction. This is what the Professor Zilberstein from University of Massachusetts Amherst tries to do. He obtains the elements of human behavior and encodes them into computer programs that the technology can read. An experiment Professor Zilberstein conducted involved semi-autonomous cars with drivers with varying levels of fatigue. In this scenario he utilized an algorithm that he created which favored roads that let the vehicle drive autonomously when the control is transferred from the man to the car. His algorithm gave drivers a better sense of safety because the vehicle would avoid roads like highways as they were fatigued. Acting with the support of The National Science Foundation, Zilberstein along with several AI researchers hope to further advance the studies of smart technology as they already integrate themselves into our societies. Studies such as this put to use decades worth of efforts and labor making changes in the world more prominent.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/02/150204111952.htm

Written by: Josh Estores

3D Printed Concept Car

3D printing is the seemingly magical process of making physical objects from three-dimensional computer models. You can design and produce almost anything through 3D printing and students at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore have even built urban solar electric cars. They have designed a car with an innovative body shell consisting of 150 parts using a 3D printer called the NV(8) which will race in the Urban Concept category at this year’s Shell Eco-marathon Asia which focuses on creating a prototype that is both fuel-efficient and road-worthy. The competition challenges students to build a vehicle that can travel the furthest distance while using the least amount of energy. The students at NTU have also built the NV(9), a three-wheeled racer that can execute sharp turns with little speed loss due to its motorcycle racing inspired tilting ability.

These two cars were built over the span of a year with the goal of highest fuel efficiency. The students built these cars from scratch and faced a couple of difficulties. One of which was the assembly of the cars. The shell of the car was produced in different pieces by a number of 3D printers at the university and other sponsor companies. Creations like this really put into perspective just how revolutionary 3D printing will be.

Link to original article: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/02/150203094149.htm

Written by: Imari Clement