Gizmorama - November 13, 2013

Good Morning,

Here's great news in the way of energy conservation - according to an article below: an array of cells using inexpensive materials can capture microwave signals from sources like satellites or WiFi to create electrical power, U.S. engineers say. The possibilities are endless.

Learn about this and other interesting stories from the scientific community in today's issue.

Until Next Time,
Erin

***
*-- Moon mission yields clues to face of 'man in the moon' --*
PASADENA, Calif. - Scientists using data from twin lunar-orbiting spacecraft are gaining new insight into how the face of the moon received its rugged good looks, NASA reports. The Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory mission has yielded clues to the asymmetric distribution of lunar impact basins, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., reported Thursday. "Since time immemorial, humanity has looked up and wondered what made the 'man in the moon,'" said Maria Zuber, GRAIL principal investigator from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "We know the dark splotches are large, lava-filled, impact basins that were created by asteroid impacts about 4 billion years ago. GRAIL data indicate that both the near side and the far side of the moon were bombarded by similarly large impactors, but they reacted to them much differently." GRAIL revealed more large impact basins on the near-side hemisphere of the moon than on the far side, a puzzling finding since scientists assumed both hemispheres were on the receiving end of the same number of impacts. However, scientists have long known the temperatures of the near-side hemisphere of the moon were higher than those on the far side, caused by an abundance of the heat-producing elements uranium and thorium; as a consequence, the vast majority of volcanic eruptions occurred on the moon's near-side hemisphere. "Impact simulations indicate that impacts into a hot, thin crust representative of the early moon's near-side hemisphere would have produced basins with as much as twice the diameter as similar impacts into cooler crust, which is indicative of early conditions on the moon's far-side hemisphere," said study lead author Katarina Miljkovic of the Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris.


*-- New technology can harvest 'lost' energy, create electricity --*
DURHAM, N.C. - An array of cells using inexpensive materials can capture microwave signals from sources like satellites or WiFi to create electrical power, U.S. engineers say. The power-harvesting technology, with efficiency similar to that of modern solar panels, can capture and utilized otherwise "lost" energy by converting the microwave signal to direct current voltage capable of recharging a cellphone battery or other small electronic device, scientist at Duke University reported Thursday. The key to the power harvester lies in its application of metamaterials, engineered structures that can capture various forms of wave energy and tune them for useful applications, the Duke team said. The engineers created a series of five fiberglass and copper energy conductors wired together on a circuit board to convert microwaves into 7.3V of electrical energy. By comparison, they noted, Universal Serial Bus (USB) chargers for small electronic devices provide about 5V of power. "It's possible to use this design for a lot of different frequencies and types of energy, including vibration and sound energy harvesting," graduate student Alexander Katko said. "Until now, a lot of work with metamaterials has been theoretical. We are showing that with a little work, these materials can be useful for consumer applications." For example, he said, a metamaterial coating could be applied to the ceiling of a room to redirect and recover energy from a WiFi signal that would otherwise be lost.

***
Missed an Issue? Visit the Gizmorama Archives