Interesting content related to Gifted and Talented and general creative links
Catching Elephant is a theme by Andy Taylor
If you are wandering around Greenland’s ice sheet and you run into this crazy thing, it is NASA’s GROVER (
government acronym for somethingGoddard Remotely Operated Vehicle for Exploration and Research). It is solar powered and it crawls around Greenland on its own and uses ground-penetrating radar to look at ice. And it’s cool.NASA robot explores ice in Greenland. Video. Will explore for months at a time via remote. Possibly prototype to explore other planets.
The Reading Brain in the Digital Age: The Science of Paper versus Screens
How exactly does the technology we use to read change the way we read? How reading on screens differs from reading on paper is relevant not just to the youngest among us, but to just about everyone who reads—to anyone who routinely switches between working long hours in front of a computer at the office and leisurely reading paper magazines and books at home; to people who have embraced e-readers for their convenience and portability, but admit that for some reason they still prefer reading on paper; and to those who have already vowed to forgo tree pulp entirely. As digital texts and technologies become more prevalent, we gain new and more mobile ways of reading—but are we still reading as attentively and thoroughly? How do our brains respond differently to onscreen text than to words on paper? Should we be worried about dividing our attention between pixels and ink or is the validity of such concerns paper-thin?
(Source: gjmueller)
BBC News - Lack of sleep blights pupils’ education
Sleep deprivation is a significant hidden factor in lowering the achievement of school pupils, according to researchers carrying out international education tests.
It is a particular problem in more affluent countries, with sleep experts linking it to the use of mobile phones and computers in bedrooms late at night.
Sleep deprivation is such a serious disruption that lessons have to be pitched at a lower level to accommodate sleep-starved learners, the study found.
» via BBC
Txchnologist: Terahertz Scanner Lets Smartphones See Through Objects
UT Dallas electrical engineers have designed an imaging chip that could let mobile phones peer through walls, wood, plastics, paper and other objects.
Researchers led by Kenneth O, director of the Texas Analog Center of Excellence and an electrical engineering…
A Stop-Motion History of Typography.
Brilliant.
Wearable Tech: Head & Shoulders, Knees and Toes
Think Wearable Tech is just about Pebble and Google Glass? This infographic by footwear retailer Brantano, breaks down this technology by body part to give you the real lay of the land.
Awesome to see InteraXon’s Muse on the list as well as the Apple Smart Shoe.
Source: http://mashable.com/2013/05/04/wearable-tech-fashion/
A team of IBM researchers is working on a solar concentrating dish that will be able to collect 80% of incoming sunlight and convert it to useful energy. The High Concentration Photovoltaic Thermal system will be able to concentrate the power of 2,000 suns while delivering fresh water and cool air wherever it is built. As an added bonus, IBM states that the system would be just one third the cost third of current comparable technologies.
Based on information by Greenpeace International and the European Electricity Association, IBM claims that it would require only two percent of the Sahara’s total area to supply the world’s energy needs. The HCPVT system is designed around a huge parabolic dish covered in mirror facets. The dish is supported and controlled by a tracking system that moves along with the sun. Sun rays reflect off of the mirror into receivers containing triple junction photovoltaic chips, each able to convert 200-250 watts over eight hours. Combined hundred of the chips provide 25 kilowatts of electricity.The entire dish is cooled with liquids that are 10 times more effective than passive air methods, keeping the HCPVT safe to operate at a concentration of 2,000 times on average, and up to 5,000 times the power of the sun. The direct cooling technique is inspired by the branched blood supply system of the human body and has already been used to cool high performance computers like the Aquasar. The system will also be able to create fresh water by passing 90 degree Celsius liquid through a distillation system that vaporizes and desalinates up to 40 liters each day while still generating electricity. It will also be able to amazingly offer air conditioning by a thermal drive absorption chiller that converts heat through silica gel.
Replacing expensive steel and glass with concrete and pressurized foils, the HCPVT is less costly than many other similar installations. Its high tech coolers and molds can be manufactured in Switzerland, and construction provided by individual companies on-site. Through their design, IBM believes they can maintain a cost of less than 10cents per kilowatt hour.
The respondents were most likely to take online courses on topics they felt more comfortable “teaching themselves.” When a student considered a subject area “difficult”—many cited mathematics and science courses as examples—they were more likely to want a traditional brick-and-mortar setting because, the report says, “they needed the immediate question-and-answer context of a face-to-face course.
3D printed synthetic tissue folds itself into shapes
From David Pescovitz on BoingBoing:
University of Oxford chemists custom-built a 3D printer that fabricates “synthetic tissue,” or rather structures with tissue-like functions. Eventually, the technology could be used to crank out replacement tissue that could replace damaged human tissue or be used in new drug delivery systems. The material consist of a network of water droplets encapsulated in lipids, or fat molecules.
“The droplets… form pathways through the network that mimic nerves and are able to transmit electrical signals from one side of a network to the other,” says Oxford University chemistry professor Hagan Bayley.
Amazingly, the material can be chemically “programmed” to fold into various shapes as water is transferred around in the network.
[via boingboing] [paper] [University of Oxford]
