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New Post has been published on http://nutsonews.com/posts/hi-tech-brew-house-to-fight-bad-beer/

Hi-tech brew house to fight bad beer

Scientists have now set out to improve beer brewing in small Danish breweries.

The objective is to use the research findings from a new, high-tech brew house at Aarhus University to prevent the biological process from going haywire during brewing at the country’s small breweries.

”If you look at Carlsberg, for instance, you won’t see any problems with the monitoring and the control of the brewing process, and the result is a quality end product every time. What we want to do is to work with the smaller breweries that do not have quite same levels of expertise,” says Assistant Professor Christian Dannesboe, who heads the new brewhouse at Aarhus University.

He explains that the people behind the smaller breweries in Denmark often have more entrepreneurship and beer-enthusiasm than scientific insight into the extremely complex biological processes taking place when hops, water and yeast are turned into beer.

“It doesn’t take a lot to give beer an undesirable after-taste,” says Dannesboe. “It can be anything from a germ in the air, a hole in the beer tank or a temperature that’s either slightly too low or slightly too high when the yeast is added.”

“And sometimes when brewers have finally managed to come up with a good recipe and a good brewing method that works, it can be very difficult to achieve the same taste again.”

The taste has to be just right

If you look at Carlsberg, for instance, you won’t see any problems with the monitoring and the control of the brewing process, and the result is a quality end product every time. What we want to do is to work with the smaller breweries that do not have quite same levels of expertise.

Christian Dannesboe

The new scientific brewery will be able to find the exact recipe for the beer that a small brewery intends to brew, but simply cannot produce in practice.

”The brewers can come to us if they’re having problems with a brew that has an unexpected aftertaste. Then we can go out with our equipment to try and identify the problem, and that allows us to intervene and guide the process in the right direction,” says the researcher.

“We will not be able to find the formula for the best-tasting beer in the world. We just want the beer to taste of the ingredients you put in. So if you add e.g. New Zealand hops, then the beer should taste of New Zealand hops and not have an unexplainable aftertaste.”

The researchers behind the project have designed the little brew house themselves and have purchased specialised sensor technology from abroad. This technology has not previously been used for beer production in Denmark.

“The supplier told us that we are one of the three companies in Denmark that are using this equipment, but that we are the first ones to link as many sensors together as we have, and we’re also the first ones to use the equipment directly for beer production,” says Dannesboe.

The result is a formula for the flawless beer that the breweries wish to produce.

Students learn to use advanced equipment

The technology in the new brew house continuously monitors the yeast cells’ consumption of sugar, the amount of live yeast and the oxygen and carbon dioxide levels in the brew.

It also keeps track of the pH value, the alcohol concentration, the temperature and the conductivity of the liquid.

This data forms the basis for an expected brewing process, making it possible to quickly identify risks and undesirable process conditions.

The new scientific brew house will also serve another function: engineering students at the university get the chance fine-tune their engineering skills by working with the sensors in the brew house,

“We want to teach engineering students who know about these advanced sensors how to use them in other contexts.”

These sensors are also used for monitoring the industrial production of enzymes and proteins in complex fermentation processes.

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Read the Danish version of this article at videnskab.dk

New Post has been published on http://nutsonews.com/posts/vanmoof-promises-worlds-first-intelligent-commuter-bike/

Vanmoof promises "world’s first intelligent commuter bike"

An ambitious Dutch cycling company wants to redefine the urban bike commute with their "intelligent" electric assist city bike, the Vanmoof 10 Electrified.

Vanmoof already produces a line of distinctive-looking traditional Dutch bikes, but their latest development combines smart sensors, an onboard computer, GPS tracking, and an electric assist system capable of boosting the power you put into the pedals by 80%, all of which help this model become the "smartest bike in the city".

The Vanmoof frames are anodized aluminum, and the Electrified has an integrated 209Wh battery system built into the top tube, as well as a dashboard with a battery meter and power indicator (which also functions as a remote control).

© Vanmoof The bike is driven by a 250W electrical motor on the front hub, which has a range of 30km to 60km, depending on riding conditions. According to Vanmoof, it takes just three hours for the battery system to be fully charged from an empty condition, and the bike is said to be easy to pedal in freewheeling mode as a traditional non-electric-assist bike.

"Specifically developed to address the demands of urban commuting, the bike’s onboard computer monitors your cycling behaviour via a sensor, adjusting the bike’s electric power – supplied via the small, lightweight motor in the bike’s front wheel – accordingly." – Vanmoof

© Vanmoof The Electrified features disk brakes on both the front and rear, a two-speed automatic drivetrain that includes a fully-enclosed chain (goodbye, greasy clothing and getting your pants stuck in the chain), and is illuminated by a 40 lux bright LED headlight and tail light for better visibility.

One innovative feature sure to be appreciated by urban bike commuters is a built-in GPS tracking system, allowing for owners to trace the location of their bike if it's been stolen (or possibly if they just can't remember where they parked it last night).

Vanmoof initially opened up sales of the bike during a pre-production period, but because all 200 of those are already pre-sold (at a cost of €1998 (~ $2598 USD)), the rest of us will need to wait until April of 2014, when the Vanmoof 10 Electrified will be available at select bike dealers.

New Post has been published on http://nutsonews.com/posts/proof-graphene-can-convert-sunlight-to-electricity/

Proof: graphene can convert sunlight to electricity

New experiments confirm theories that graphene has the potential to improve the energy efficiency of solar cells. (Photo: Colourbox)

Graphene is a promising alternative to the materials currently used in solar cells, new experiments reveal.

With its impressive electronic properties, its strength and its light weight, graphene has amazed scientists ever since it was discovered more than a decade ago.

This material may well end up revolutionising the entire solar cell industry, since it can effectively extract electricity out of the sun’s rays and also contains some unique physical properties that are superior to other materials.

“We saw clear signs that graphene has a series of properties that make it very efficient at converting sunlight to energy, and our experiment showed that graphene can be a promising alternative to the materials currently used in solar cells. This has been theorised before, but this is the first time that an experiment shows how graphene works,” says Søren Ulstrup, of the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Aarhus University, Denmark, who was one of the researchers behind the new study.

No other material is known to have a higher electron mobility than graphene. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

“Graphene has the potential to effectively harness the energy from sunlight. Compared to silicon, which is a material currently being used in solar cells, graphene is more conductive and can absorb the entire light spectrum of sunlight, and that may well boost the efficiency of solar cells.”

A promising alternative to silicon

When sunlight hits a solar cell, the cell’s photons absorb the sun’s light. Today’s commercial solar cells consist of silicon, which converts the photons into electricity.

Silicon is a semiconductor that is also used in computer chips – hence the name Silicon Valley in California.

It has long been suspected in the computer industry that graphene may be the new wonder material that kicks silicon off the throne as the ideal conductor of electrical current and heat.

At the fundamental level we have showed that graphene contains the processes required for extracting more than one electron out of a sunlight photon.

Søren Ulstrup

And several theories suggest that graphene may even have the potential to significantly improve the efficiency of solar cells.

Graphene extracts more electricity from the sun

These theories were confirmed in the new experiments. They revealed that like silicon, graphene can extract several electrically charged electrons from a single photon of sunlight – whereas other materials only get a single electron out of a photon.

“At the fundamental level we have showed that graphene contains the processes required for extracting more than one electron out of a sunlight photon,” says the researcher.

“In other words, graphene is a fantastic material for converting sunlight into energy, and that provides us with a strong basis for using the material to improve the efficiency of solar cells.”

High-energy laser reveals potential of graphene

This is the first set-up in which it’s possible to directly observe electrons in the graphene and see how they respond to e.g. light.

Søren Ulstrup

Ulstrup and colleagues from Aarhus University used a British laboratory with a special high-energy laser, which can activate electrons inside the materials they wish to study.

”A national British research centre has developed a laser technology that can irradiate a material with energy levels so high that it hits the electrons within. This is the first set-up in which it’s possible to directly observe electrons in the graphene and see how they respond to e.g. light. The laser was developed specifically for this type of experiment.”

The many (new) benefits of graphene

By exposing graphene to the high-energy laser, the researchers found that:

Graphene contains the basis for a mechanism known as carrier multiplication. This mechanism involves the generation of multiple electron-hole pairs from the absorption of a single photon.

Graphene electrons retain energy for some time after having been irradiated with the high-energy laser (or the sun’s rays). In other materials, the electrons decay faster and lose their energy immediately after having been irradiated. Graphene makes it possible to store the energy, thus optimising the energy conversion before the electrons decay.

Graphene is a transparent material which only absorbs 2.3 percent of the light that shines on it. Despite this, the researchers observed that the graphene electrons respond strongly when irradiated by the laser. By stacking multiple layers of graphene on top of each other, the absorption increases, and that can increase the amount of energy generated in the process of light conversion.

Graphene is capable of absorbing the entire light spectrum of sunlight, unlike e.g. silicon, which cannot absorb infrared light.

“Our experiment shows, at the fundamental level, that graphene can be extremely effective for converting sunlight into electricity,” says Ulstrup.

Theories have suggested that graphene has the right properties for creating energy from sunlight – and now we have proved it experimentally. We now also know the underlying mechanisms.

Søren Ulstrup

“The next step involves producing solar cells with graphene, and that’s a major technological challenge because we don’t know how to get graphene into a solar cell. We need to find a way to place graphene on top of a semiconductor, which can then be connected to a battery.”

A step in the right direction

There is some way to go, but Ulstrup is confident that the new findings represent a crucial step in the right direction:

”Theories have suggested that graphene has the right properties for creating energy from sunlight – and now we have proved it experimentally. We now also know the underlying mechanisms,” he says.

“So now we can start fine-tuning the material so we can further improve the effect. That wouldn’t be possible if we didn’t know its physical properties.”

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Read the Danish version of this article at videnskab.dk

New Post has been published on http://nutsonews.com/posts/worlds-first-hybrid-windcurrent-generator-could-generate-double-the-power/

World's first hybrid wind/current generator could generate double the power

  Combining a three-bladed Darrieus turbine on top, a Savonius turbine underneath, and a generator in between, the SKWID power generation concept is claimed to be the world's first hybrid system "capable of maximizing the harvesting of ocean energy from wind and current".

The SKWID, from the Japanese company Mitsui Ocean Development & Engineering Company (MODEC), is designed to capitalize on the energy potential available both in the winds above the ocean, and in the currents flowing beneath the waves. The device uses an omnidirectional Darrieus wind turbine sitting 47 meters above the sea on one end of a vertical shaft, with a different type of omnidirectional turbine design, a 15 meter diameter Savonius, spinning at the other end under the surface.

© MODEC

The Darrieus wind turbine efficiently harnesses the ocean wind: The omnidirectional Darrieus turbine rotates regardless of the wind direction. Due to the location of the generator, the system has excellent stability with a low center of gravity, as well as excellent maintainability with easy access. The Darrieus’ rectangular swept area catches twice as much wind when compared to the circular swept area of typical onshore wind turbines of the same diameter and is therefore capable of delivering twice as much power from a single installation – far more power from the same wind farm area

The Savonius current turbine harnesses the current: The split-cylinder-shaped buckets of the Savonius current turbine can harness any weak current and will rotate in one direction regardless of current direction. This turbine is insensitive to marine growth on the buckets and is harmless to the marine ecosystem, as it rotates slowly at the speed of the current. – MODEC

The floating unit is said to be stable and self-righting, thanks to a gimbal-like support structure that isolates the generator unit from the motion of the waves, as well as the underwater turbine acting as a ballast or keel. According to CBS News, a prototype SKWID unit will be deployed off the coast of Japan this fall.

New Post has been published on http://nutsonews.com/posts/play-a-computer-game-and-help-solve-big-physics-mystery/

Play a computer game and help solve big physics mystery

This is what one of the toughest levels in ‘The Quantum Computer Game’ looks like. Researcher Jacob Sherson only managed to complete this level twice. Click the link in the article and see if you can do better than he did. (Photo: Jacob Sherson)

An entirely random group of young gamers solving an advanced quantum mechanics problem? Doesn’t sound like the most likely scientific scenario, does it?

This is nevertheless the objective of a new online game, available to all who fancy helping out with the development of a new supercomputer. The first version of the game was launched earlier this week, and you can have a go yourself here.

Today’s computers, great as they are, cannot solve the riddle in the game; however, thousands of human brains working together might be able to do it.

We all have unique problem solving skills

”We are testing an entirely new type of research in which we use the internet to get in contact with a great number of people. We all have a unique ability to solve difficult problems,” says the man behind the project, Assistant Professor Jacob Sherson, a quantum physicist at Aarhus University’s Pilot Center for Community-driven Research.

The game is designed so that players contribute to the development of a supercomputer when they complete a level. The game consists of picking up an atom in a well, moving it past obstacles as quickly as possible and leaving it at the target position without any sloshing.

This is the same problem that Sherson is trying to solve in the real world by developing the first large-scale quantum computer.

‘Egg tray’ with atoms

A regular computer is based on switches, which are either switched on (1) or off (0).

A quantum computer is based on atoms, which can be both on and off (0 and 1) at the same time.

This means that a quantum computer can work much faster than any of today’s computers. A quantum computer with 300 qubits, for instance, would be more powerful than all the regular computers in the world combined.

He has built a crystal with a size of about a tenth of hair’s breadth. It is made from laser beams and looks a bit like an egg tray with 300 grooves, occupied by exactly one atom.

In the game, individual atoms need to be moved around between the grooves with laser tweezers.

Every time a player completes a level in a clever way, the exact mouse movements are saved.

Over the next year, Sherson will be programming the laser tweezers to copy the movements and move the atom exactly like the player did in the virtual world.

Sloshing atoms are a challenge

”It’s difficult to move atoms without causing them to slosh around inside the well,” says Sherson. “And it’s here that the small jerks and the irrational decisions of humans may help getting the atom to stay where it should be.”

A computer may be able to calculate the shortest and straightest path, but not the path that ensures that the atom won’t slosh around in the well.

’Citizen science’, of which this project is a good example, is also known as ’public participation in scientific research’.

An example is the computer game Foldit, which was developed by American researchers. Here, online players were asked to fold amino acid chains to help the researchers predict the appearance of proteins and to boost their understanding of various diseases.

The researcher has visited six Danish high school classes where the students could test the early versions of the game. He did this partly to present the students to the world of quantum research and partly to find the people with the skills required for the task.

“I only managed to complete one of the hardest levels twice, but there’s always one or two students who can do it in an instant.”

Scouting for special skills

The researcher is working with experts from other fields, including psychologists and teachers.

Together, they tried to pick the most suitable students and tried to figure out what it was that made them so good at solving the challenges.

The long-term plan is to get the best players to help with the design of new levels in the game.

”Being who I am, I get only few ideas within a certain framework,” says Sherson. “There are probably lots of people out there who think differently and who can thus develop new challenges that we can use in our research.”

Fewer computers in the future

You can take part in the development of a quantum computer by visiting the project website.

In addition to trying out the game, users are also invited to contribute with design ideas.

The computer of the future will probably be based on atoms and quantum mechanics, but rather than everybody owning one computer, there will be fewer but more powerful computers in the future.

The researcher sees it as a problem for today’s computer manufacturers that it is virtually impossible to make the machines smaller without moving into the quantum territory, which would lead to new problems with controlling the atoms.

“It can be difficult to imagine that the technology will be more advanced than it is today, but when you’re presented with this idea about quantum computers, you actually get a realistic look into the future,” he says.

Fast-track science

Today there are quantum computers with 14 atoms, also known as quantum bits, or qubits. However, there is still a long way to go before Sherson’s computer can be used for anything more than simple calculations.

Adding an additional qubit takes months, and here the researcher is trying to skip the many stages using the players’ special skills.

”We’re starting with 300 atoms,” he says. “Perhaps we’ll be using quantum computers within a couple of decades.”

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Read the Danish version of this article at videnskab.dk