Bili Buzz - Popular Science, Nature, Medicine, Archeology, Future & Myths

This is the newest online tool you will find. It’s called Dodo, the Time Machine, by Aviary. All you have to do is to upload an image, adjust the time (future or past) and you will see how a face or an object look like at that time

This video is a Neal Adams animation about his theory that the Earth is growing. This collides with the Pangea theory. Watch it, you will be amazed.

Organized by Interni magazine, Green Energy Design was an exhibition of experimental, multimedia installations by some of the top international design talents. The event took place on the beautiful grounds of Milan’s Università degli Studi and it was the perfect site for a relaxing sunny Sunday morning after a week marked by loads of action and just as much rain. The main installations were along the courtyard and there were plenty of “isole relax” or relaxation areas where one could sit in well-designed comfort by the likes f Martí Guixé and Patricia Urquiola with a cup of coffee and a few Interni design week publications. It was a pleasant way to take in the work, some of it quite self-explanatory, some a little more obscure. Ross Lovegrove’s Solar Tree and Toshiyuki Kita’s Sunplant were two of the most obvious energy-producing pieces, and a most apt piece of social commentary was Gaetano Pesce’s installation of a bare space with a hospital bed called Lo Spazio Malato?

The higher up in the air you go, the faster wind travels - so naturally the further from the ground a wind-turbines gets, the more efficient it can be. Thats why the idea of a flying wind-turbine is a such a win-win (or win-wind) proposition. Combining wind power with floating blimps, Selsam has been hard at work expanding the horizons of alternative energy with a revolutionary new breed of SuperTurbines that promise to take wind power to new heights.

Resembling a field of wind-swept reeds swaying on the horizon, these floating wind spires boast an ultra-efficient design that flexes with the wind, taking advantage of air currents along the length of their shaft to generate electricity. Selsam’s prototypes produce 6000 watts in 32.5 mph winds - six times more power than a similarly sized seven foot single-rotor turbine can produce. The turbines can be easily deployed by land and by sea, and their effectiveness can be amplified even further via an air-born blimp.

We’re currently at a bottleneck in the wind turbine pipeline, with GE reporting that it is unable to make turbines fast enough to meet demand. It’s no wonder, since the largest turbines have a propeller size that surpasses the wingspan of commercial airliners and require an intricately machined gearbox. This amounts to a time and resource-intensive engineering and assembly process that has production struggling to deliver on a $12 billion backlog of orders.

Selsam’s SuperTurbines offer an innovative approach to the problem with a scaled-down system of multi-rotor stalks that are extremely versatile, more efficient, and cheaper and easier to produce than than large lumbering windmills. The design relies upon economy of scale to maximize efficiency, employing multiple rotors along a lightweight, flexible shaft that allows it to shift and move with wind currents. Since the turbines rotate at higher rpms than traditional turbines, a small and light direct-drive generator can be used instead of a hulking gearbox.

Selsam’s most recent designs are optimized for sea deployment and consist of a rotor-studded shaft stemming from a floating base that is anchored to the ocean floor. The system is designed so that turbine’s base rotates similarly to the human spine, thus the turbines won’t twist and spin out of control. In an ingenious answer to stormy weather, the turbine’s base can fill with water, submerging it safely beneath the ocean’s surface.

In addition to producing energy, the multiple rotors act in unison to keep each stalk afloat; if you’re in need of a visual metaphor, Selsam’s website supplies them in spades: “Like a flock of geese, each rotor favorably affects the next in line. Like a set of louvres, the tilted rotors pull in fresh wind from above, deflecting their wakes downward to insure fresh wind for succeeding rotors and, like a stack of kites, to add overall lift which helps support the driveshaft against gravity and downwind thrust forces. The rotors act as gyroscopes or spinning tops, stabilizing the driveshaft where they are attached.”

When we recently wrote about Sunhope’s solar balloons, many people suggested that they take advantage of wind energy as well. It turns out that Selsam is one step ahead of the game with this exciting technology. Let’s just hope they find a way to negate the turbines’ ominous implication as potential bird blenders.

Via : Ecogeek.org

Imagine if R2D2 didn’t project images of Princess Leia, but rather an assessment of local superfund sites. Objectively, it’s nothing like the very adorable R2D2, but the Environmental Risk Assessment Rover (ERAR) by EcoArtTech is proving to be a very useful and devoted robot friend. Solar powered and GPS-oriented, the ERAR analyzes data from its surroundings, including air quality, local traffic accidents, and current terrorist warning levels. The rover breaks its findings down into fourteen unique (and pretty funny) categories, everything from “Plastic Bags” to “Regis and Kelly”, and projects them onto nearby natural surfaces. Just like the Princess Leia projection, right? Okay, not really, nor with the cute little meeps and whistles, but this thought-provoking rover sends a more urgent and critical message.

The ERAR robotic device was created by contemporary art duo Christine Nadir and Cary Peppermint, who work collaboratively as EcoArtTech. Their other recent enviro-tech and transmission art works, Wilderness Trouble and Frontier Mythology, collectively explore our relationship to and interfacing with our surroundings. Via a crafted synergy between technology and the environment, EcoArtTech challenges our perception and highlights the inseparability of nature and culture.

The Environmental Risk Assessment Rover is on display at the Neuberger Museum of Art in Purchase, New York until June 1, 2008, as part of free103point9’s fascinating and timely exhibition Off the Grid, a dialogue between thirteen contemporary artists and the dynamic between modern energy and consumption in the modern landscape. The ERAR, like all of works exhibited in ‘Off The Grid’, are meant to conceptually challenge conventional and commercial infrastructures.