the result of extensive focused research, the lighting system for hospital rooms can mimic natural daylight rhythms as well as match patients' moods, shown to improve sleep quality, increase mood, and speed recovery.
formed of bamboo with embedded LED lights, the bamboo piece functions as a recessed luminaire in addition to being incorporated into walls as a structural component. a separate mountable lamp serves smaller spaces.
I haven’t seen many nursing bottles redesigned to such finesse as this Angel Mommy Pack. The bottle is ideal for reheating breast milk using a double boiler system and keeping away unnecessary air. Simple and intuitive to use, I’m sure mothers will appreciate this patented design (hint – it should be out soon).
Inspired by the elegant form of the samurai sword by the same name, the Odachi Folding Bike can fold into itself and be worn on the user’s back much in the same way as the sword would be worn. Alternatively, it can also be pulled on the ground alongside the user. Made from bamboo fiberboard, the bike is both extremely strong and relatively lightweight.
by: Gizmag Emerging Technology Magazine, 2011-12-21 21:43:42 UTC
Remember what it was like in the days before the internet, if you were trying to find out something specific? If you wanted know what flounders eat, for instance, you would have to physically go to the library, look up “marine biology” in the card catalogue, find the appropriate books in the stacks, look up “flounder” in their indexes – and even then, you might not find what you were looking for. It was certainly a lot more work than just typing in “flounder diet” on Google. Well, materials research so far has been kind of like that pre-Google era, in that scientists have had to spend months conducting research in order to determine how different compounds will react with one another. With the launch of MIT’s Materials Project website, however, it looks like that could be about to change...
Continue Reading MIT database could revolutionize materials research
by: Gizmag Emerging Technology Magazine, 2011-12-22 03:55:21 UTC
A team of researchers from the University of Notre Dame in Indiana is reporting the creation of a "solar paint" that could mark an important milestone on the road to widespread implementation of renewable energy technology. Although the new material is still a long way off the conversion efficiencies of commercial silicon solar cells, the researchers say it is cheap to make and can be produced in large quantities...
Continue Reading Researchers develop cheap and easy to mass-produce "solar-paint"
The well loved Bobble water bottle now comes in a colorful jug size for your home! Keeping the bottle’s modern and fun design style in mind, the new jug filters your water with ease and is even made from recycled, BPA-free plastic. Available in a variety of candy colors, the popular water filter can slip right into your refrigerator door for fresh, pure water anytime.
In 2011, Germany finally saw their renewable energy production top that of almost all other sources of energy, including nuclear, hard-coal and gas-fired power plants. The only other energy generation source greater than the renewable energy mix was lignite-fired power.
According to a report from German utility BDEW, renewable energy accounted for 20 percent of the country's total energy output, up from 16.4 percent last year. Lignite-fired output produced 24.6 percent of the electricity.
Nuclear power is dropping off in the country since Chancellor Merkel closed the eight oldest reactors this past year after the Fukushima catastrophe. Nuclear represented 17.4 percent of the country's electricity load, down from 22.4 percent last year and the country plans to step away from the energy source completely by 2022.
A team of engineers at the University of Illinois have figured out how to create self-healing circuits in electronics and batteries, a discovery that could lead to longer equipment life and make a nice dent in the piles of e-waste plaguing the planet.
As electronics have become more complex, one small circuit failure can render a device useless, especially since it is hard or often impossible to diagnose where that failure occurred to fix it. Nancy Sottos, an engineer working on the project said:
"In general there's not much avenue for manual repair. Sometimes you just can't get to the inside. In a multilayer integrated circuit, there's no opening it up. Normally you just replace the whole chip. It's true for a battery too. You can't pull a battery apart and try to find the source of the failure."
The solution her team came up with was an army of microcapsules about 10 microns in diameter dispersed along a circuit. When a crack occurs in the circuit, the microcapsules break open and release a liquid metal that fills in the crack and restores the electrical flow. The time between a failure and the microcapsules filling the crack is only a few microseconds.
In tests, 90 percent of the samples were healed to 99 percent of their original conductivity. It also require zero human intervention. Only the microcapsules intercepted by a crack opened while the others remained intact.
The engineers see this breakthrough as especially useful for air and spacecraft where miles of conductive wire would have to be gone through to diagnose a failure. The team, which originally used microcapsules to create self-healing polymers, want to see what other applications they may have.
San Francisco has a poop problem – in the city’s Tenderloin district alone, there were almost 10,000 recorded “incidents of human waste” last year, according to the Bay Citizen. So this fall, the Oakland-based design firm Hyphae Design Laboratory offered a solution: install portable composting toilets that are both easy on the environment and cheap, because they don’t need electrical or plumbing inputs. Hyphae is currently working on a prototype which is set to debut in the Tenderloin next year.
by: Design 4 Sustainability, 2011-12-29 17:13:45 UTC
The first ceramic box cutter in the world. It is designed to reduce injuries on the workfloor. It's handle is anti-slip, easy to hold and protects ...
by: Design 4 Sustainability, 2011-12-28 16:29:20 UTC
Paperfoam is an sustainable alternative to foamed plastic inlays and other packaging. It is made from starch, fibers to fill and water. CD boxes for ...
by: Design 4 Sustainability, 2011-12-23 14:36:50 UTC
The United Nations is urging countries across the globe to phase-out old style incandescent light bulbs and switch to low-energy compact fluorescent ...
by: Design 4 Sustainability, 2011-12-23 14:02:36 UTC
Organic farming isn’t easy in China, but Tony’s Farm is doing its best. Located in the Shanghai area, it delivers organic vegetables to its member’s ...
by: Design 4 Sustainability, 2011-12-22 08:09:46 UTC
The new Vitocal 300-A is the first air/water heat pump with Digital Scroll Technology and electronic bi-flow expansion valve. This enables high annual ...
by: Design 4 Sustainability, 2011-12-20 06:23:58 UTC
Airdye is a water-less dye process for synthetic fabrics and materials. AirDye technology eliminates hazardous wastewater as a byproduct of dyeing ...
by: Design 4 Sustainability, 2011-12-18 08:00:57 UTC
Rusty Allen designed a great water bottle; re-usable, easy to fill due to the big fill opening, easy to carry on a finger, a mouthpiece that fits the ...
by: Design 4 Sustainability, 2011-12-16 09:00:46 UTC
Since a year or so Laundry driers are available more energy-efficient. Of course the most energy efficient is to dry the laundry outside on the line ...
by: Design 4 Sustainability, 2011-12-16 09:00:16 UTC
Economist Intelligence Unit Report on Sustainable Future
The research department of the weekly magazine regularly gives out the results of its research ...
by: Design 4 Sustainability, 2011-12-14 07:56:08 UTC
Thanks to an innovative adjustable mechanism that can change the width of the stroller, in just three simple clicks the Bugaboo Donkey transforms with ...
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