As you might have heard, the Consumer Product Safety Commission is working hard to ban those sets of tiny magnets after a handful of reports of them being swallowed by children who then require surgery to have them removed. But it turns out that companies like Zen Magnets and Buckyballs might still be able to sell their products if the magnets are sold individually. More »
Harnessing the awesome power of the Sun isn’t just dependent on the efficiency of solar cells, but also on making them affordable. Current techniques aren’t exactly cheap, but researchers from
The carbon amalgam can be applied from solution using simple methods, meaning the flexible cells could be used to coat surfaces, although you won’t be seeing it smeared over anything too soon. The prototype only touts a “laboratory efficiency of less than 1 percent,” so it can’t compete with traditional solar cells just yet. Also, it only absorbs a sliver of the light spectrum, but the researchers are looking to other forms of the wonder element which could increase that range. They are hoping that improving the structure of the cells will help to boost their efficiency, too. They might never generate the most energy, but the all-carbon cells can remain stable under extreme conditions, meaning they could find their calling in harsh environments where brawn is a little more important than status, or looks.
Stanford researchers create ‘world’s first’ all-carbon solar cell, do it on the cheap originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 01 Nov 2012 19:12:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
First they came for our Buckyballs. Now, or pretty-much-exact-same Zen Magnets are in Uncle Sam’s crosshairs, with a lawsuit from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission to boot them off store shelves. The War on Toy Magnets has begun. More »
Alt-week peels back the covers on some of the more curious sci-tech stories from the last seven days.
Remember when we told you last week that we live in a strange world? Well, we had no idea what we were talking about. Seriously, things are about to get a whole lot weirder. High school is certainly a head-scratcher, no matter how old you are, but the mathematics of social hierarchies can’t hold a candle to the mysteries of the buckyball. And, if the strange behavior of the familiar carbon molecule isn’t enough for you, we’ve got an entirely new molecule to contend with, while the once-elusive Higgs Boson is getting us closer to unlocking the secrets of the universe. It’s all pretty heady stuff, which is why we’re also gonna take a quick detour to the world of human waste. This is alt-week.
Continue reading Alt-week 8.4.12: buckyballs, bosons and bodily fluids
Filed under: Misc. Gadgets, Science
Alt-week 8.4.12: buckyballs, bosons and bodily fluids originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 04 Aug 2012 13:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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The Consumer Product Safety Commission has just banned the sale of Buckyballs, those magic magnets that can be shaped any which way, because the balls are a serious health hazard for children. It’s the first stop-sale order by the CPSC in 11 years. More »
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