The Future Engineer

China’s homegrown ‘bus in the sky’ becomes global sensation

The Khasis are a tribe in India that grow their own bridges. For generations they have passed down the art of tree-root manipulation, forming centuries-old ‘living bridges’ out of the powerful roots  of the Ficus elastica trees. Source Source 2 Source 3

Photo:  anselmrogers-wiki cc /  amusingplanet

Photo: amusingplanet / anselmrogers-wiki cc

China’s Anji Bridge, built in 605 CE, is the largest and oldest stone-arched bridge in the world and is still in use today. It’s survived 1400 years of floods, war, and earthquakes without needing to have any of its 28 original structural slabs replaced. 

Photo via: China.org

Photo via: China.org

Photo: Public domain

Gravitational waves are real — and that’s a huge f***ing deal!

A century ago, Albert Einstein theorized there was such a thing as a fabric of space and time — that the universe was malleable, and that large objects and events would cause it to bend.

He was right. From studying the signals emanating from the merging of two black holes — have separate masses equal to 36 and 29 suns — scientists with the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory were able to observe gravitational waves. Their measurements matched expectations of what Einstein predicted in his General Theory of Relativity.

(LIGO in Louisiana, with its 2.5-mile antenna arms)

FARM 432

PROTEIN BRED IN 432 HOURS

BACKGROUND:

Industrial scale production of animal meat is intense in its use of resources. One third of croplands worldwide are used to produce animal feed. 80% of antibiotics are fed to animals and livestock is the single biggest factor for climate change. Livestock feed is one of the most important key factors for the environmental impact of meat production. Elaborate research into this topic revealed opportunity for a more independent, decentralized way of farming protein.

IDEA:

Farm 432 enables people to become independent from the system of current meat production by growing their own protein source at home. After 432 hours, 1 gram of black soldier fly eggs turn into 2.4 kilogram of larvae protein, larvae that self-harvest and fall clean and ready to eat into a harvest bucket.  Black soldier fly adults don´t eat, therefore they don´t have any mouth parts and do not transmit any disease. The larvae can be fed on bio waste, therefore the production almost costs no water or CO2. Black soldier fly larvae are one of the most efficient protein converters in insects, containing up to 42% of protein (dried), a lot of calcium and amino acids.

Plants vs Petrol!

Our dependence on fossil fuels is complex and it’s increasing. We need a sustainable solution. What about using the sun’s energy to power our cars? We already use the sun’s energy to create electricity but it’s difficult to store and it isn’t available on demand: so we need a liquid fuel.

Plants make liquid fuels from sunlight using a chemical reaction, but they’re not very good at it. Scientists are trying to make an improved version of this process using artificial leaves. If we could improve it to make fuel more efficiently, and pack all this fuel producing leaf power into a much smaller space, we could have a bottomless supply of sustainably produced liquid fuel.

Plants can’t solve all of the world’s problems, but in the hands of some forward thinking scientists, they could reduce our dependence on fossil fuels and on the list of global problems worth addressing: that’s a big one.

No washer-dryer at home? No problem. This washing machine doesn’t even need electricity. You’re going to want one.

Researchers at Linköping University’s Laboratory of Organic Electronics, Sweden, have developed power paper – a new material with an outstanding ability to store energy. The material consists of nanocellulose and a conductive polymer. The results have been published in Advanced Science.

One sheet, 15 centimetres in diameter and a few tenths of a millimetre thick can store as much as 1 F, which is similar to the supercapacitors currently on the market. The material can be recharged hundreds of times and each charge only takes a few seconds.