Eye Repair December 30, 2020
Posted by stuffilikenet in Awesome, Brain, Science.add a comment
There is a lovely article on Hackaday about restoring vision to blind persons which eye can see will be enlightening[0]. It will open your eyes to brilliant possibilities.[1]
[0]Sorry about the puns; I seem to be in a vitreous humor today.
[1]Not really sorry.
COVID Vaccine Info Dump December 30, 2020
Posted by stuffilikenet in Applications, Awesome, Science, Uncategorized.add a comment
Berthub.eu has an excellent deconstruction of the Pfizer vaccine (“a character-by-character look at the source code of the BioNTech/Pfizer SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccine”).
You won’t be sorry.
Ju-u-u-ust About There December 30, 2020
Posted by stuffilikenet in Awesome, Geek Stuff, Toys, Video.add a comment
Exciting update:
Ion-propelled Aircraft December 8, 2020
Posted by stuffilikenet in Awesome, Geek Stuff, Science, Star Trek Technology, Toys, Uncategorized, Video.add a comment
Yanked from the scripts of Star Trek with embarrassing plagiarism, researchers from MIT have created a proof of concept aircraft propelled by ionic thrust. They have only tested it in a (pretty large) gymnasium, but it’s impressive nonetheless.
Simple in concept[0], a wire with 20Kv ionizes air in front of an airfoil while the oppositely-charged airfoil draws the air over itself:
The amount of thrust generated by this system is pretty small admittedly, so there are several airfoils stacked atop one another to provide enough lift for sustainable flight.
An intriguing design, it is possibly a first step of a solution to the problem of noisy propeller-driven flight. If we imagine a future with drones filling our skies, I sure hope they are quiet[1]
[0] to be honest
[1] unlike my wife’s drone
Stabilizing Perovskites December 3, 2020
Posted by stuffilikenet in Awesome, Science.add a comment
Professor of Chemistry Biwu Ma and his team from Florida State University published a new study that shows if you add a layer of N,N‐bis(tert‐butyloxycarbonyl)‐quinacridone (TBOC‐QA) to a perovskite solar cell, it increases the stability and efficiency of the cell with an efficiency of 18.9% without the layer of pigment to 21.1%. It also seems to have enhanced the durability of the cell (perovskites do poorly in humidity and air).
Better still, this is a pretty simple process from a manufacturing point of view: spray and heat (“surface passivation by annealing”). “We believe that surface passivation of these cells using low-cost pigments is a very promising approach to improving their stability and efficiency,” Ma said.
Homework: Qingquan He et al. Highly Efficient and Stable Perovskite Solar Cells Enabled by Low‐Cost Industrial Organic Pigment Coating, Angewandte Chemie International Edition (2020). DOI: 10.1002/anie.202012095
Perfect match December 3, 2020
Posted by stuffilikenet in Brilliant words, Video.add a comment
Stuffilike.net 