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

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.

A bird is able to make drops of water defy gravity and flow into its mouth.

A team of MIT mathematicians and engineers has shown that some shorebirds use their long, thin beaks in a tweezering motion to make prey-bearing water droplets rise upwards so they can be consumed.

The work is even more remarkable because last year a team at the University of Bristol, led by Prof Jens Eggers, thought that it was the first to make droplets flow up a slope, by vigorously vibrating the droplets, and announced the feat in the prestigious journal Physical Review Letters.

But now it seems that birds beat them to this gravity defying feat, probably by millions of years.

As Charles Darwin showed nearly 150 years ago, bird beaks are exquisitely adapted to the birds’ feeding strategy.

In this case the north American phalarope takes advantage of surface interactions between its beak and water droplets to propel bits of food from the tip of its long beak to its mouth, the team reports in Science.

Wildlife biologists have long noted the unusual feeding behaviour of phalaropes, which spin in circles on the water, creating a vortex that sweeps small crustaceans up to the surface, just like tea leaves in a swirling tea cup.

The birds peck at the surface, picking up tiny droplets of water with their prey trapped inside.

Since the birds point their beaks downward, gravity must be overcome to get those droplets from the tip of the bird’s long beak to its mouth.

Until now, scientists have been puzzled as to how that happens.

To unravel the mystery, Prof John Bush and colleagues built a mechanical model of the phalarope beak that allowed them to study the process in slow motion.

As the beak scissors open and shut, each movement propels the water droplet one step closer to the bird’s mouth.

In this stepwise ratcheting fashion, the drop travels along the beak at a speed of about 1 meter per second.

The mechanism depends on the chemical properties of the liquid involved, so phalaropes and about 20 other birds species that use this mechanism are extremely sensitive to anything that contaminates the water surface, especially detergents or oil.

“Some species rely exclusively on this feeding mechanism, and so are extremely vulnerable to oil spills,” said Prof Bush.

This gravity-defying action is made possible by the surface tension of water, as well as a physical effect known as “contact angle hysteresis,” which normally causes drops to stick to solids.

When combined with the tweezering motion of the beak, however, this effect enables the water droplets to rise mouthward, explained Prof Bush.

A Swiss pilot strapped on a jet-powered wing and leaped from a plane Wednesday for the first public demonstration of the homemade device, turning figure eights and soaring high above the Alps.

Yves Rossy’s performance in front of the world press capped five years of training and many more years of dreaming.

“This flight was absolutely excellent,” the former fighter pilot and extreme sports enthusiast said after touching down on an airfield near the eastern shore of Lake Geneva.

Rossy, 48, had stepped out of the Swiss-built Pilatus Porter aircraft at 7,500 feet and unfolded the rigid eight-foot wings strapped to his back before jumping.

Passing from free fall to a gentle glide, Rossy then triggered four jet turbines and accelerated to 186 miles per hour, about 65 miles per hour faster than the typical falling skydiver. A plane that flew at some distance beside him measured his speed.

Via : Time

The designer of Apple’s iPod and one of the biggest names behind Bluetooth chip technology have received honours from the Royal Academy of Engineering.

Jonathan Ive, Apple’s vice-president of industrial design, won the coveted President’s Medal for his contribution in promoting engineering excellence.

The UK’s engineering body also awarded CSR the prestigious MacRobert award for its single-chip BlueCore technology.

The £50,000 MacRobert Prize rewards innovative technology and engineering.

The awards ceremony, dubbed the “engineering Oscars”, also included other medals recognising British engineering prowess and achievements.

They were handed out at a ceremony in London which was attended by the UK government’s minister for science, Lord Sainsbury.

Cambridge company CSR beat three other finalists to the top MacRobert Prize, including a sea-floor mapping system that spots oil and gas deposits, saving millions in exploratory drilling.

Other finalists included a mobile phone tracking program that pinpoints emergency callers and maps traffic jams, and a revolutionary fibre laser.

CSR’s key technology breakthrough in the late 1990s was to create a silicon chip with an integral radio transmitter.

“It sounds easy but in fact the ‘noise’ of the electrical signals on a tiny electronic chip would normally swamp a radio receiver working with micro-volt signals, and at the time it was thought to be impossible,” said Dr Phil O’Donovan, CSR’s co-founder.

They found a way around the problem by managing frequencies so that radio signals could communicate through the noise of a silicon chip’s digital traffic.

This is akin to the “cocktail party” effect, where certain voices can be heard over the crowd.

Blue everywhere

Its BlueCore technology is in millions of consumer electronics, such as personal digital assistants, laptops and mobiles, which need short-range communication capability.

Bluetooth is becoming increasingly important in helping different devices talk to each other wirelessly, such as hands-free headsets.

It is also being used more by the fashion industry, such as sunglass maker Oakley and snowboarding clothes maker Burton.

Having wireless capability built into clothing and accessories means people can use devices such as mobiles more easily whilst on the move or otherwise occupied.

CSR, widely recognised as the global leader in Bluetooth, is what is called a “fabless” company.

This means it focuses on the design and development of its Bluetooth micro-processors, then forms alliances with silicon wafer manufacturers and foundries who make them.

It has designed over 30 types of BlueCore silicon chips. Since 1999, 75 million of its chips have been sold and used in over 60% of all Bluetooth-enabled devices.

The President’s Medal is given on an ad hoc basis to people or organisations who have made significant contributions to the academy’s aims of promoting engineering excellence, but who are not eligible for election to the academy.

Mr Ive’s iPod engineering and design has made the device the biggest-selling portable digital music player in the world.

It dominates 80% of the music player market; by the end of 2005 more than 35 million iPods will have been shipped.

Other awards on the night included the Academy’s first ever Lifetime Achievement prize which was given to Dr Philip Woodward, retired deputy chief scientific officer, for his pioneering work on radar.

He was also behind one of the UK’s first electronic computers (TREAC) followed by the UK’s first solid state computer (RREAC).