Alchemy: Transform Metal into Gold

Haikal_Baik
For the past hundred years, many scientists tried to do alchemy, in which the ultimate aim is to create a philosopher's stone, an object powerful enough to convert normal metal to gold or silver. The stone also is believed to hold the secret of immortality through elixir of life. Though not all part from alchemy is understood nowadays, it did provide a foundation for modern science and chemistry.

Nonetheless, people are still trying to find ways to create gold because after all, gold is considered high value item and represents the wealth of an individual. Unfortunately, the status may change due to recent finding at Michigan University. The finding, which is a bacteria named Cupriavidus metalliduransc (right?) is found to be able to produce gold nugget through microbial processes.

"Gold nugget" after the microbial alchemy

Well, the amount, as you can see from the picture is not much compare to the gold that you'll find in nature but with more research, the capability to turn something into gold, though amazing, may bring impact to world's economy.
Gold nugget found in nature

The researchers presented their finding as an art project called The Great Work of Metal Lover by using a portable lab house where the bacterium performs the "microbial alchemy" thingy. And luckily, the researchers said that replicating the bacterium's actions on a larger scale would be impractical and cost prohibitive.

Source: here
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Earth Natural Music

Haikal_Baik
Dawn chorus refers to a phenomena that occurs during sunrise and with proper but unsophisticated equipment, you can hear a music played by the Earth.


The music is believed to be generated by interaction between high energy electrons that trapped in the Earth's magnetosphere and electromagnetic field from solar wind. Well, ignore the scientific jargon for now, chill and listen to the song of the earth.

P/s: I'm not grasping the how this music is created just yet. But you are welcome to read about it here and here.


Source: Here.
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Thorium Future

Haikal_Baik
As world energy demand increases, there are talks about alternative energy being not enough to support the depleting fossil fuel. However, new discovery (well, relatively new) has been made and with the subject of nuclear fusion/fission to generate energy, Thorium, is said to hold the key.

Below is a good infographic about Thorium and its properties that enable it to become the future in providing the world's energy need. 


Source: here
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Thought Control Quadrotor

Haikal_Baik
Since the discovery of brainwave by Hans Berger, neurologist from Germany, more advance applications are made to utilize the brain function, which includes using brain to give instructions to physical object. The video below shows several experiments done by researchers at Zhejiang University, China regarding thought control. 


If the explanation isn't clear, here's a sort of what the lady said in the beginning:

"Flying Buddy2 is developed to ease the life of a disable person. It consists of electroencephalography headset, AR Drone and a computer. The computer can receive the EEG signals via bluetooth and convert them to specific (unclear, morse?) to control AR drone through wifi computer program"

Well, that's what i heard. Nevertheless, the system is utilizing the brain wave with the main purpose being for the betterment of the disable. The possibility exists that the same system can be used by normal people and when the difference between men is narrowed down to only their thought pattern, one can assume that a training to enhance thought pattern to develop stronger brainwave signal is of importance. 

And since the human brain is not yet fully understood, imagine how thought pattern of a single person can affect the physical world. The Fringe series, has an episode regarding this. 


While it's interesting to see how neuroscience provides an insight to new technology, one can see the importance of putting a limit to the advancement of technology so that no unwanted catastrophe being cast upon mankind because of their 7 deadly sins. 
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Losing Weight with Virus

Haikal_Baik

Problems regarding weight has been well documented over the past decades or so. Diabetes, renal malfunction and high blood pressure which can lead to stroke are all associated with weight. Well, fear not, recent studies on John Hopkins University stated that there'll be an easy way to prevent and control this problem.

Neuropeptide Y - protein involves in regulating food intake and physical activity.

Researchers at the university found out that rat group injected with the virus ate less as compared to the control group. The virus is said to interrupt/attack/inhibit the process of Neuropeptide Y (NPY), an amino acid said to be responsible for energy regulation, learning and memory processing.

To make it even more surprising, the observation on the rat revealed that injected rat when given high calorie food, didn't convert them into white fat, but easy-to-burn brown fat instead. The virus is years from being able to be used on human though, but one can feel the ramification of this finding towards mankind.
Source: Here and here



p/s: i think the virus 'forced' the NPY to convert it to brown fat cause i don't think the virus is responsible for fat conversion. Well, it's just an opinion, i have no idea how it actually behaves though.
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Harvesting energy from insects in quest to create tiny cyborg first responders

haboqueferus
An insect fitted with piezoelectric generator to harness the energy from the insect's wing.
Insects have served as the inspiration for a number of Micro Air Vehicles (MAVs) that could be deployed to monitor hazardous situations without putting humans in harm's way. Now researchers at the University of Michigan College of Engineering are proposing using actual live insects enhanced with electronic sensors to achieve the same result. The insect cyborgs would use biological energy harvested from their body heat or movements to potentially power small sensors implanted on their bodies in order to gather vital information from hazardous environments.

To harvest energy from insects, the researchers have designed a spiral piezoelectric generator that converts the kinetic energy from the insect's wing movements into electricity. This power would be used to prolong the battery life of devices implanted on the insect, such as a small camera, a microphone or a gas sensor. The prototype piezoelectric generator was fabricated from bulk piezoelectric substrates and was designed to maximize the power output in a limited area.

"Through energy scavenging, we could potentially power cameras, microphones and other sensors and communications equipment that an insect could carry aboard a tiny backpack," said Professor Khalil Najafi, the chair of electrical and computer engineering at the U-M College of Engineering. "We could then send these 'bugged' bugs into dangerous or enclosed environments where we would not want humans to go."

The U-M team examined several techniques to scavenge energy from wing motion with their results were published in a paper titled "Energy scavenging from insect flight," which was recently published in the Journal of Micromechanics and Microengineering. The university is now pursuing a patent for the technology and is seeking commercialization partners to bring it to market.

Getting the insects to go where their handlers want them to is another part of the puzzle that needs to be solved before insect cyborgs can be deployed. But DARPA has been working on this, having put out a call some years back for research proposals for Hybrid-Insects-Micro-Electro-Mechanical System (HI-MEMS) interfaces to control the movement of living insects. Combining the two technologies could be just the thing to take insect cyborgs to the next level and see them used to monitor hazardous situations in the not to distant future.


sources : http://www.gizmag.com/insect-cyborgs/20596/


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Shredder Clock

haboqueferus



There is a new clock that makes you wanna wake even if you don't want to cause you can't afford not to.
The Shredder Clock is just a concept, but it’s a pretty good idea, and a new spin on the notion that money is a great morning motivator. Other alarm clock inventions force you to feed them money before they’ll shut up, or automatically donate to charities that you hate until you get out of bed, but this one lets you see your money going to waste.
You could conceivably shred anything you find precious, from letters to pictures, not just money even summons if you want to risk going to jail.
This actually seems like a decent DIY project — it probably wouldn’t take much work to sync a paper shredder to your alarm clock although the outcome won't be as good as this.


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