This week’s Feedback column (that I write) in New Scientist magazine has four segments. Here are bits of each of them: Power meringue — Researchers in South Korea and the US have cooked up a recipe for meringue that you can then use to make electrical batteries…. Public relations equation — “It will cost up to $21.5 […]
Two papers for your consideration, with the opportunity to find relationships between them: Light from Pickles (and Other Sources) “Characterization of Organic Illumination Systems,” Bill Hamburgen, Jeff Mogul, Brian Reid, Alan Eustace, Richard Swan, Mary Jo Doherty, and Joel Bartlett, Western Digital Laboratory Technical Note TN-13, April 1, 1989. (Thanks to Richard Holstein for bringing […]
People eat sandwiches to give themselves energy. A new study explains how to get electricity from those sandwiches without going to the bother of eating them. The study is: “Sandwich as a Triboelectric Nanogenerator,” Jingyi Jiao, Qixin Lu, Zhonglin Wang, Yong Qin, and Xia Cao, Nano Energy, vol. 79, no. 105411, September 2020. The authors, […]
Hair growth was electrically prodded into happening in/on rats and in/on nude mice, using a clever gizmo, says a new study. The news potentially raises excitement about growing hair akin to the excitement about disease treatment raised by numerous reports of cancer being cured in mice. The new study is: “Self-Activated Electrical Stimulation for Effective […]
Earthing mats (a.k.a. ElectroStatic Discharge – Safe Mats) are commonplace in the electronics industry, where sensitive components need to be protected against potentially damaging rogue electrostatic discharges (ESDs). Not so common, though, for protecting furry pets in the home. But this may now have changed. Inventors Thomas J. Gaskill (Haddonfield, NJ), and James S. Gatti […]
Two coffee/caffeine/electricity-generation studies to consider: “Direct power generation from waste coffee grounds in a biomass fuel cell,” Hansaem Jang, Joey D. Ocon, Seunghwa Lee, Jae Kwang Lee, and Jaeyoung Lee, Journal of Power Sources, 296 (2015): 433-439. “Caffeine Improves the Performance and Thermal Stability of Perovskite Solar Cells,” Rui Wang, Jingjing Xue, Lei Meng, Yonghai […]
Building on the work of Prof. James F. Scott, FRS of the Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge UK, who showed that : “[…] ordinary bananas exhibit closed loops of switched charge versus applied voltage that are nearly identical to those misinterpreted as ferroelectric hysteresis loops in crystals.” See: ‘Hysterical ferroelectric banana misinterpretations’, November, 2015) Muhammad Ismail and colleagues […]
If you were unfortunate enough to be suffering from hemorrhoids, would you consider applying 350 volt electric shocks to the affected area – supplied via an electric fish? Improbable though it may seem, such practices were well known in Roman times – predating modern TENS machines by some 2000 years. “Ecclesiastes 1:9 states that there is […]
Nowadays, many patients with neurological problems are fitted with Direct Brain Stimulation (DBS) devices such as Implantable Pulse Generators (IPGs). However, like any electronic devices, they can be adversely affected by strong electrical and electromagnetic fields. A recent case was brought to light in the Journal of Neurosurgery, describing the plight of a 66-year-old woman […]
“Currently, consumers’ concerns and consciousness about safety and nutritiousness of food consumptions are increasing. Fresh and fresh-like products have become more attractive in the market than the same kind of products produced by heat process.” But heating isn’t the only method to preserve, say, rice pudding – you could pulse 33,000 volts though it instead. […]