Better Worlds

by John Skylar, PhD

In my work as a Medical Writer, I constantly find myself buying papers or hunting for them for free if I can’t find them for purchase.

Unpaywall, which I just discovered, makes this a LOT easier, and we thought that would be of great interest to our followers.

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) has installed and commissioned the highest peak power laser diode arrays in the world, representing total peak power of 3.2 megawatts (MW).

by John Hasier

Scientists have developed a highly efficient oxygen-producing electrode for splitting water that has the potential to be scaled up for industrial production of the clean energy fuel, hydrogen. The new technology is based on an inexpensive, specially coated foam material that lets the bubbles of oxygen escape quickly. Unlike other water electrolyzers that use precious metals as catalysts, the electrode is made entirely from two non-precious and abundant metals -- nickel and iron.

by Humza Kazmi

Hydrogen gas can be produced through a process called "water splitting," breaking apart water molecules and freeing up hydrogen from the water. Normally, this process requires electrodes made out of rare elements like iridium or ruthenium, making it difficult to produce on a large scale. However, Dr. Xunyu Lu and Dr. Chuan Zhao of the University of New South Wales have developed a water-splitting method that may replace the costly rare elements with the much more abundant iron and nickel. 

Normally these elements wouldn't be able to efficiently support the reactions necessary for splitting water. But the process that Drs. Lu and Zhao have developed uses tiny holes in the nickel electrode to drastically increase the surface area available for the electrolysis reaction (allowing more hydrogen to be generated) and allows for the hydrogen to flow more efficiently away from the electrode.

Mass production of hydrogen is currently undertaken through using fossil fuels like methane. Having alternative sources for hydrogen production brings us one step closer towards long-term alternative energy solutions.

by Jill Bearup (twitter)

300 million people in the world are colorblind. But Berkeley-based company EnChroma has developed glasses which filter colors in order to enhance their separability for colorblind people, enabling people to see a wider spectrum of colors. 

Researchers have shown how to convert waste packing peanuts into high-performance carbon electrodes for rechargeable lithium-ion batteries that outperform conventional graphite electrodes, representing an environmentally friendly approach to reuse the waste.

by Graham Weidman

If you're like me, you get a fair amount of stuff in the mail. It's only natural--I can find widgets online that are remarkably inconvenient to find by driving around town. Unfortunately, this also means that I end up with a substantial amount of packing material.

Polystyrene. Packing peanuts. Great at what it does, but cluttering up my garage. On the one hand, I don't want to just throw it in the garbage. I want to recycle it. On the other, recycling polystyrene foam is remarkably difficult. The recycling centers in my area just don't take the stuff. Not economical.

Scientists are helping to reveal the secret to cheaper, super-efficient solar power by studying a family of crystalline materials called hybrid perovskites.

by Graham Weidman

Researchers have come up with a new way of making thin perovskite films for solar cells. The method forms perovskite crystals at room temperature, which could be helpful in mass production settings. The technique is especially well suited to make ultra-thin, semitransparent films, which could be used in photovoltaic windows.

by Graham Weidman

Today we're bringing you another piece on manufacturing solar cells.  Why this focus? For a product to exist, it's not enough to want to make it.  It also has to be manufacturable. In the case of current silicon-based solar cells, they're desirable, but they require crystalline silicon, which doesn't come cheap.

The circuit-bending sound of analog guitar effects

by John Hasier

The researchers hope to begin human trials in 2017.

by B. Lana Guggenheim

A new technique using ultrasound has proven effective at breaking down amyloid plaques in the brain. Amyloid plaques are one of the two types of lesions found in the brains of those who suffer from Alzheimer's disease, which form protein blocks that inhibit the transportation of nutrients and cell materials among the brain structure, and thus inhibit function. Using this technique, researchers were able to create sound waves that oscillated fast enough to break up these plaque clusters, which re-opened the blood-brain barrier and allowed for the toxins to be flushed from the brain naturally.