This Camera Lets You Go Back In Time

A new pocket-sized wearable camera allows you to ‘go back in time’ to capture such fleeting moments. Developed by a United States Based company, the ‘Perfect Memory’ camera is a pocket-size and lightweight 12 megapixel device that can record audio and video in full high-definition. The camera continuously records, and can save footage from the previous five minutes, or any other pre-set duration, when you tap its touchscreen.

This allows people to retroactively save a video of an event after it occurs. We don’t know when a surprising, magical moment happen – capturing a baby’s first words, for instance. The device can be worn as a hands-free body cam. It can also attach to the dashboard of a car, stick to virtually any surface, be paired with action camera mounts, and even hung around a pet’s neck. It can also click pictures, act as a regular video camera and shoot time-lapse photography.

US Gets 1st Wave of Power From The Sea

In the water off the coast of Hawaii, a tall buoy bobs and sways in the water, using the rise and fall of the waves to generate electricity. The current travels through an undersea cable for a mile to a military base, where it is fed into a power grid – the first wave-produced electricity to go online in the US. By some estimates, the ocean’s endless motion packs enough power to meet quarter of America’s energy needs and dramatically reduce the nation’s reliance on oil, gas and coal. But wave energy technology lags well behind wind and solar power, with important technical hurdles still to be overcome.

To that end, the US Navy has established a test site in Hawaii, with hopes the technology can someday be used to produce clean, renewable power for offshore fueling stations for the fleet and provide electricity to coastal communities in fuel-starved places around the world. The US has set a goal of reducing carbon emissions by one-third from 2005 levels by 2030. Wave energy technology is at about the same stage as the solar and wind industries were in the 1980s. Both received substantial government investments and tax credits that helped them become energy sources cheap enough to compete with fossil fuels.

Jet Fuel May Soon Grow On Trees

Australia’s iconic gum trees may be used to produce enough low-carbon renewable jet fuel to power 5% of the world’s aviation industry. Renewable fuels that could power commercial aeroplanes are limited and expensive but a solution could be growing all over Australia. If we could plant 20 million hectares of eucalyptus species worldwide, which is planted pulp and paper, we would be able to produce enough jet fuel for 5% of the aviation industry. The aviation sector globally produces about 2% of all human-caused carbon dioxide emissions. A eucalyptus-based fuel would initially be more expensive than fossil fuels to produce on a mass scale, but would produce significantly less net carbon emissions.

Researcher noted that the new fuel would counter a big challenge, as powering a modern jet with some of the currently available alternatives is difficult, due to the high energy the aircraft require. Renewable ethanol and biodiesel might be okay for the family SUV, but they just don’t have a high enough energy density to be used in the aviation industry. Eucalyptus oil contains compounds called monoterpenes that can be converted into a very high energy fuel, and this high energy fuel can actually fly jets and even tactical missiles. The study examined how to boost production of monoterpenes to obtain industrial-scale jet fuel from plants. This includes selecting the appropriate species, genetic analysis, advanced molecular breeding, genetic engineering and improvements to harvesting/processing of the oil. Researcher said jet fuel derived from

eucalyptus oil would be close to carbon neutral.

Floating Farm To Grow Food On Cargo Ships Returning Empty

About 90% of the world’s goods are carried by sea, with more than 705 in shipping containers carrying everything from TVs to sportswear from Asia to the rest of the world. But the global imbalance in trade means most of these containers are empty on the return journey. Design student from RCA, has devised a way to stop this empty space going to waste. Grow Frame is a collapsible hydroponic farm that could grow vegetables inside the empty containers during the weeks-long sea voyage. Grow Frame tackles the challenge that half of all containers going to China are empty. And that means, right now, 13 million containers annually are traveling around with just air. And when researcher heard about that he thought that’s not a problem, that’s an opportunity.

Each plant is grown in small individual plastic bags containing all the water and nutrients needed to feed the plant during the trip. The mini farms would cultivate vegetables using battery powered LED lights that can be adjusted to provide precisely the right spectrum of light for optimal growth. Researcher said the energy efficient lights and the battery would hold enough power for the duration of the voyage; for example, for the approximately three weeks it takes for the vessel to travel from the UK to China. To keep the climate inside each container as natural as possible, he said he’s planning to grow mushrooms with leafy vegetables to help balance the mini ecosystem.

Insect-Inspired Sensor to Detect Airborne Chemicals

Scientists, including those of Indian origin, have developed a novel sensor – inspired by hairy, flying insects – that can quickly detect a broad range of dangerous airborne chemicals. Most insects have tiny hairs on their body surfaces, but it is not clear what the hairs are for. Trying to make sense of what these hairs are capable of, researchers designed experiments involving a “forest” of tiny hairs on a thin vibrating crystal chip. When using resonators as sensors, most people want to get rid of dissipation or friction because it is considered highly undesirable, it tends to obscure what you are trying to measure. They have taken that undesirable thing and made it useful.

A One-Dose Cure For Ear Infections

A single dose of a new bioengineered gel may deliver a full course of antibiotic therapy for middle ear infections, making treatment for this common childhood illness much easier and potentially safer. Middle-ear infection, or otitis media, is the number one reason for pediatric antibiotic prescriptions, but getting oral antibiotics into young children several times a day for seven to 10days is a daunting task. With oral antibiotics, you have to treat the entire body repeatedly just to get to the middle ear. With the gel, a pediatrician could administer the entire antibiotic course all at once, and only where it’s needed. Squirted into the ear canal, the gel quickly hardens and stays in place, gradually dispensing antibiotic across the eardrum into the middle ear.

Lab-Grown 3D Lungs to Help Study Diseases

Scientists, including those of Indian origin, have successfully grown 3D lungs in the lab, using stem cells, which can be used to study diseases that are difficult to understand with conventional methods. By coating tiny gel beads with lung-derived stem cells and then allowing them to self-assemble into the shapes of the air sacs found in human lungs, researchers created 3D “organoids”. The laboratory-grown tissue can be used to study diseases including idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, which has been difficult to study using conventional methods.

While researchers haven’t built a fully functional lung, they’ve been able to take lung cells and place them in the correct geometrical spacing and pattern to mimic a human lung. Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis is a chronic lung disease characterized by scarring of the lungs. The scarring makes the lungs thick and stiff, which over time results in progressively worsening shortness of breath and lack of oxygen to the brain and vital organs.